


Sleepaway

by aliform



Category: Death Note
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Crack, Camping, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliform/pseuds/aliform
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Light is hired as a counselor for a mysterious summer camp that seems to be more intent on breeding world leaders than archery, what's he to do? Try to take over, of course...but the head counselor has other plans for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Entrapment

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at ff.net, overhauled, given a cozy bath, and pampered into something real once again, no longer on endless hiatus!

Firstly, the elderly, white linen suit and straw boater-wearing British gentleman standing in front of him was praising every merit listed on the extensive resume Light had sent two days prior.

Secondly, the offices of this camp were housed in a massive structure of woodsy elegance and grandeur that suited Light's vision of camping exactly. Besides, a camp that boasted training in falconry wouldn't send its tender, rich wards off into the wild housed in measly little shacks to be barraged by beasts, would they? They would not.

Thirdly, they had pleaded a desperate need for someone with Light's intelligence, physical stamina, and inherent charisma. And they were willing to pay him a half million pounds for three months to do what simply came natural.

Yes, Light thought as he shook the gentleman's hand and thanked him, this is no short of perfect.

Yet Light had no idea what was in store as he stood in his sensible camping shoes, khaki cargoes, and violently blue polo at the entrance of a building he assumed was his private quarters. He'd been ordered here by the elderly British gentleman to meet the counselor who would train him. Said counselor needed a partner in order to manage his charges, as they were becoming taxing (Oh, the lies Light had eaten!). And Light was giddy to help.

He'd rightly assumed that Wammy's Sleepaway Camp was much, much more than the frolics and rainbows its name implied. A camp that had claimed existence for seventy years that went unlisted in every index of summer camps, that hadn't registered with the Association of British Sleepaway Camps but with governmental authorities in no less than one hundred and three countries was hiding _something_. Light wanted to discover the something and exploit it until it was an empty husk, only good enough for rubbish.

Which is why he had to make an excellent impression on the person exiting Light's quarters.

And suddenly, in a moment Light could have never prepared for, Light's imagined ideal of what a trainer at a secret camp for spies or detectives or world leaders was shattered.

Standing above him on the steps, almost huddled into the door frame, was a personage who may have been the same age as himself, or older, or younger. He couldn't quite tell. But Light had expected a uniform. He'd expected a shiny zeal and confidence that matched his own. He'd expected a person who scrubbed their face with wholesomeness in the morning before settling down to a breakfast of zesty love-of-life.

Instead—messy hair the color of pitch. A thin white shirt and loose jeans. A blank expression devoid of any emotion excepting an almost-mocking glint in his eyes, but Light hardly caught that in lieu of the smokey smudges insomnia had drawn beneath them.

Bare. Feet.

"May I help you?" The creature shifted on the steps and Light noticed an infinitesimal stain on his collar. Disgusting. Light wiggled his toes and wondered if this was an errant camper forced to give the new staff member the grand tour. Most likely. But no matter—first impressions were first impressions, so he bounded up the steps with an outstretched hand.

"Hi, I'm Light Yagami. I was supposed to meet a counselor here to be given a tour of the camp. Do you know where he is?"

L almost laughed. Light was immaculate. Toffee-colored bangs brushed from his eyes, back erect, manner utterly confident as he shifted his weight to one foot and waited for a return gesture of welcome.

It was not forthcoming.

Instead, L pulled a bag of gumdrops from his pocket. "Why did you assume I wouldn't be the person you were seeking?"

A muscle in Light's temple quirked and the hand returned to his side, fisted. "I—are you?"

"Yes," was the rather anticlimactic reply. "Shall I give you the tour, then?" The counselor fished out a red gumdrop and popped it into his mouth before sliding past Light, who had no choice but to follow.

Stalling for time while Watari prepared himself, L led Light through parts of the main building not seen prior (nor would Light ever see them again, but that was a trifling matter, and this thought amused L as he noted Light obediently memorizing rooms and faces and activities with dedicated vigor). The other counselors, Light was noticing with a sneer, wore matching shirts stamped with the camp's logo in bright comforting colors. And, it seemed, every one of them stared after his companion with envy, awe, or both entwined in their eyes. The mystery of this idolization was sliced apart inches further when Light was shown a veritable water park. L dipped a dirty toe in the wave pool as he explained to Light the need for physical activity to stimulate young minds in a toneless sort of voice that suggested total boredom.

"L!" screamed a voice from the far end of the pool. The shout was taken up by every child in the vicinity, and L's skinny ankles were clutched in pure hero-worship as kids swarmed him like bees round their queen. A bit too much shoving, a tad too much tugging, and L fell into the pool on a heap of children screeching with joy.

Light seized the opportunity at once.

A young girl no taller than his waist stood next to him looking unsure of herself, as if she didn't know whether to jump in and join the mad frenzy of bodies or spare herself the danger of drowning. He poked this wunderkind on the shoulder. (At this point L managed to wiggle free and escape without a single pause to see how Light was faring.)

"Who's L?" asked Light. 

She stared it him with a blush, rubbing where he'd touched. "That's a stupid question. L's the best." She was frowning up at him, annoyed now.

"At what?"

The girl, who's name was Edwidge, and who will never again appear in this story, thought. He was either stupid or L had told him nothing. If the latter, there had been reasoning she wouldn't try to match. So she became vague. "At everything. The best ever. Who are you?"

"I'm a new counselor who's training with him." Surely some prestige would come at the association and she would divulge. 

"Your shirt is a really pretty blue."

"Thank you," Light said through gritted teeth. "What do you mean by 'ever'?"

Then Light tensed as a counselor-with-a-uniform suddenly appeared at his side, eyes blank. "L requests your presence in the men's shower room," quipped this person. "I'll lead you." Claws descended upon Light's arm, and the teenager was drug away from Edwidge and hauled off towards the south end of the pool with all the ceremony of disposing of an especially odorous bag of refuse. The counselor thrust their prize through a door, and there was L, fully clothed and dripping.

L's eyes widened slightly before he ripped off his sopping shirt and threw it at the wall. "Hurts, doesn't it?"

"Pardon?"

"Not having the answer."

"Who are you?"

"Most likely what you were told." L stepped out of his shorts.

"You don't know—"

"The best?" His hands went for his boxers.

Light fumed as he politely gazed upward. "Did you train them to say that?"

"What do you think?"

Light heard a zipper being tugged shut and snapped his head down to glare at his tormentor properly. "No. It's never what I think, it's what I know. This isn't a summer camp. You're training a secret army to shove into government positions or something. The kids in that craft room were quoting Marx in the original German." He swallowed hard, eyes growing dim as he fantasized. "You...you've..." Light faltered.

L's thumb hovered over his bottom lip, marring the smirk that was disturbing Light. "Go on."

"The way the kids worship you and the other counselors look at you...like you're the best they've got...means you're the smartest here or have already...done things and they respect you," he finished lamely.

Yes, that must have been awkward to swallow. Light's own starry path had left a wake of admirers and for the first time he wasn't the center of attention, hadn't been the one turning heads or drawing out whispers. It must have been annoying to be looked over, the irritant of it itching under the excitement of his new position.

"I'm guessing they reserve you to train the best children," was the brilliant brat's next theory.

"And?"

"I'm second best."

L shoved his hands in his pockets, knowing it wasn't enough of a tell given how little time they'd already spent together. "Why?"

"I'm working directly under the _best_." 

"Perhaps I've chosen to keep a closer eye on you that way." L kicked the other parts of his wardrobe over to join the shirt. He'd changed into the exact same ensemble. At least this shirt looked cleaner.

"Then why give me authority?"

"What is your definition of authority?"

Light blinked, wondering how he could even ask so idiotic a question. "My contract. I read it, of course. I have joint charge with you over several—"

"The paragraph before that, Yagami."

"I'm your subordinate."

"Yes, which means if I tell you to sit on your hands in a corner the entire time and if you move one finger you're under breach of contract."

"But you wouldn't because the expense of hiring me would be wasted."

Did he really consider himself so valuable that he was taking L seriously? This was fascinating. "Why do you think it's an expense?"

Light choked down a bubble of anger. "It wouldn't be just monetary. You'd be wasting _me_. I'm a valuable resource!"

Deciding that any more of this earnest narcissism would make him gag, L shambled over until the two were no more than a few inches apart. He flicked the upturned corner of Light's collar before murmuring, "but how much exploitation can you take?"

Light gaped.

L regretted his impulsiveness; Watari was going to have a fit if his newest treasure was marred by suggestive threats after barely two hours. But as if to spare Light everything L's expression was implying, a uniformed counselor appeared in the doorway.

"The Aston is waiting, L."

"Good," said L, eyes never leaving Light. "It's time to drive to the campsite."

"I thought this was the campsite." The word campsite reeked of fires in pits and gathering wood. It suggested tents made of nothing but thin nylon and sleeping inside human-sized mesh pockets. Campsite was closely linked to bugs, smoke, discomfort.

The over-chipper counselor had the nerve to titter. L ignored her. "No. We will be immersed in activities illegal in most countries and have found it best to conduct them in places people don't think exist. Those satellite maps you looked at were faked."

Had Light not felt defeated he may have replied with something witty and scathing. Instead, he chose to follow L.

It was half a million pounds. It would be worth it.


	2. Persuasion

Watari shoved Light's dozen suitcases and satchels and other frippery into the backseat of the Aston Martin, as the trunk was already full with the advance guard of Light's luggage. He was muttering strange curses under his breath at the boy, who had regretfully volunteered to keep his belongings from spilling to the front of the vehicle as a sort of human dam directly behind the driver's seat.  

"He can hear you," said L blandly from his exceedingly comfortable position shotgun. A single bag lay at his feet while Light was left to be squished by the majority of his possessions. "And he doesn't like to be touched." L blithely ignored the look Light flashed him at that.  

Watari dramatically turned the key in the ignition after a flourish of his hands. "Ready your loins, men! We shall now commence our foray into the very secret of Gaia herself!"  

Light giggled nervously into his wrist. 

The giggling was stopped short when they began hurtling down a narrow gravel road at upwards of 120 mph. Watari particularly enjoyed turning at the very last second, which would send Light hurtling into either his door or his suitcases. The trip lasted a terrifying 15 minutes as the car plunged ever-deeper into the forest, which grew darker and more foreboding with each side road the car plunged down. Before journey's end Light was already counting bruises, totally disoriented, nauseous, and hoping the old man would suffer a fatal collision on the return trip. 

"Out," bellowed Watari once they came to a halt in a wide clearing. He turned in his seat to glare at Light through narrowed eyes. "Treat the goddess kindly and she won't bite." Then he clapped L on the shoulder. "Methinks the tent to the northwest is most apt for your purposes. And Light, if I hear that you've disobeyed my finest detective in _anywhichway_ I'll have you chained to his side, is that statement pellucid enough for you?"

Light only cowered behind his laptop case.  

As for L, he dutifully considered the size of Light's wrists. 

 

* * *

 

It has been previously stated that the facade of Wammy's Sleepaway Camp shown to Light was his ideal for connecting deeply with the environment. He also appreciated the outdoors through the various sports he played—when connected with competition, aggression, and uniforms, he didn't quite mind a mouthful of trimmed grass. But to venture forth into spaces where no city lights hued the blackest of nights tints lighter than they would have been, where creatures with teeth dwelt to provoke, where comfortable luxuries Light considered the barest of necessities were forsaken—it was enough to make the spoiled thing twitch.  

Of course L and Watari had taken this heartily into account and the place where Light was to dwell for the next three months had been designed with him in the foremost of their thoughts. Watari had decided himself which character he was to play in order to give Light the sense that no authority beyond L himself would be helpful in the least. This perspective had been applied to the campground itself: to create in L the only bulwark of knowledge.  

There were no cabins. There were no tents. Instead, they had implemented the appalling spawn of the two: the platform tent, a structure with a shingled roof and canvas sides set on a raised wooden deck. These horrors of architecture were totally vulnerable while appearing decent to a passerby's eye. Three had been erected inside the grassy clearing. These were neighbored with a single latrine and an extensive square of dirt with a fire pit in the middle. 

Upon reaching the tent Watari had so kindly directed them to, Light found that L's belongings were already inside the space. Coolers, paired with a single suitcase, were carefully stacked underneath a hammock that took up a full third of the area. A metal cot with a thin pallet made of plastic was, Light saw, the only option he'd been provided with. The air mattress he brought was going to save his back.  

L plopped into the hammock at once, curled sideways with his thumb at his lips. Light was poking about near the floor. 

"There are no electrical outlets, Light. If you would like I can have Watari bring batteries for any devices you have that use them." 

"That's fine," Light snapped, contenting himself with ripping his air mattress out of its package. 

"They'll be here in an hour."  

Delicately hiding his anger, Light began pumping. 

Exactly four minutes and twenty-six seconds before the arrival of those who were to transform Light's understanding of the word regret, the tent became something livable. L's side had not changed. Light's side seemed to now be a condensed archival of his entire life. 

The metal cot was covered with air mattress and cotton sheets with a high enough thread count for a luxury hotel, as well as an eiderdown comforter in a tasteful steel color, with a ratty old thing stuffed quickly inside a pillowcase that may or may not have been a baby blanket. The ramifications of the baby blanket were amusing L to no end as he watched Light from behind the screen of his laptop. The seventeen year-old had hung a small mirror on one of the wooden side supports next to a sheet strung across a corner to suggest a triangle-shaped changing room (the fabric was patterned with strawberries; L assumed it was an old sheet of Light's sister). A row of shoes (hiking boots, steel-toed boots, flip flops in three different colors and two pairs of sneakers) were neatly lined at the foot of the bed near an opened suitcase whose contents revealed more polos sorted by depth of saturation. The domestic finishing touches were a straw mat on the floor at the entrance, a few photos tacked next the mirror, and a bottle of febreze lying on a rough-hewn bedside table procured from another tent.  

L now had every reason to believe that Light was secretly a twelve year-old girl.  

Before he could suggest this fact in a mildly acerbic way the unmistakable roar of the Aston hit them, and they watched the bullet of metal follow its previous tracks and pull onward until the car was directly lined up with the open tent flaps.  

"I've brought them!" Watari hallooed as he rolled down his window. "I see Light is still here! Excellent! Now, you fell beasts—" But all three campers had already tumbled out of the car and raced inside.  

Light had been prepared. He had been told that they were geniuses—that they required Light's devotion and he was expected to teach them.  

But he had not expected _Mello_. 

And now, faced with long thighs, infinitesimal shorts, and a tight little smirk, neurons had almost ceased firing. 

"What's that?" snapped the blonde angel himself, pointing a rather dirty finger at the strangely preened creature in his idol's living quarters.  

"Light Yagami."  

"Whoa." Mello's eyes, as those of his two companions, roamed over Light and his accompanying property with a bit of shock. Though Light had yet to open his mouth the three mutually concluded from the visuals provided that L was either daft or smitten for taking in this creature reeking of DEET and sunscreen.  

Feeling that his presence was enough of an introduction, Mello bounded over suitcases to rip Light's photographs off the post in handfuls before curling up next to Light and sweetly demanding each grisly crime scene to be explained in detail. Matt plopped next to him with DS in hand after grunting something congenial in Light's direction, and after sinking to the floor at Light's feet Near began to paw through Light's belongings, eyes narrowed on L. Lawliet, meanwhile, mutely watched the four with growing irritation. Or rather, he watched Mello take full, cool-eyed advantage of Light's dazed adoration, prying for information until Light was detailing the security the Japanese police force gave their databases. (Not that Mello cared in the least about the subject—he was much more interested in discovering what triggers best manipulated. Biting his lip whilst tucking back a random strand of hair behind his ear would lead to unfettered, exuberant divulgences, for starters.) After five minutes of Light's rambling Mello had learned everything he wanted for the moment and rose to languidly stretch, emitting a rumbling purr stolen directly from L.   

"...and then I was holding the tampon after smearing the...where are you going?" Light's ego returned and carved through the Mello-induced haze. He was not _dismissed_ , especially not while listing his most embarrassing moments. Exactly how had they moved to that topic? He couldn't quite remember—it may have been at the time Mello decided to lean over and expose an elegant stretch of spine tight against his black shirt. 

"I'm hungry," Matt said.  

"Yes," Near agreed, dropping Light's hairdryer. The three looked at L. 

"Go unpack," was the brusque order. "We'll start making food in half an hour." 

Mello leaped from the tent with Matt in tow while Near followed in their wake. Once Mello's shouts were a fair distance away L sat up in his hammock and plucked absently at a hangnail. "They won," he announced.  

Light glared. "What?"  

"Name one of them." 

L watched Light fish-mouth uncomfortably. It was then Light noticed that half of his suitcases were now open and the contents in disarray. "What—" 

"Near decided that Mello's psychoanalysis wasn't broad enough." 

"I didn't even—" But that had been the point. Light shut his mouth and flopped onto his back, glaring at the ceiling. "They won."  

A sullen silence followed that L broke once he figured the internal tantrum had subsided. "Would you like to meet the rest of the staff, Light?" 

"There–oh–of course."   

Unfortunately progress towards that goal was impeded by the situation that confronted the two once they left their tent.  

Not only was Matt tied to the grille over the fire pit, stripped to the waist, Mello was dancing around the boy with a can of lighter fluid, eagerly sloshing the contents over his body.  

"—EVER HIDE MY GHIRARDELLI OR GODIVA AGAIN—" Mello was screaming.  

Ignoring Mello's horrible taste in chocolate, Light saw this as a chance to exercise his excellent skills at moderation and peacemaking. He sprinted quickly towards the two as graceful as any lithe beast of the savannah with L following at a walk.  

Mello, plan going perfectly, pulled out the gun he'd stuffed into his shorts and pointed the weapon at Light once Light was close enough that his face would be blown off in one neat chunk. "BUGGER OFF, I'M-A-GAY." 

Light flushed. He noticed that Near was perched on a chair made from a thick slice of log and, for some reason, his embarrassment deepened, most likely because Near's expression seemed to convey that he thought Light a twat. Further agony was spared by L.  

"Mello, desist at once."  

The grip on the gun loosened. "What's with this guy anyway?" He waved the gun in Light's face.

L blinked. "Please tell me you did not create this scene simply to get my attention."

Mello was most definitely pouting now. Light bit his lip to keep his self-control intact and with that alerted Mello to a chance at victory. The blonde threw the gun to the ground and prostrated himself at Light's feet. This gave Light a most excellent view of parts of Mello he'd had yet to scrutinize and _yes, whatever you'd like_ was already on Light's tongue when Mello began to wail.  

"Liiiiiiiiiggghhhh—" 

"We're leaving," said L abruptly. The detective made is if to pluck at Light's shirt but his hand fell back awkwardly; three others (Light was still staring at Mello) took note. "Now. Light has to meet the rest of the staff. Mello—untie him." 

Mello glared but reached for the bungee cords as the two older boys turned towards a path at the edge of camp. 

Matt grinned up at his captor. "They're both hopeless. We can exploit this." 

Near huffled a little noise that may have been contentment.

 

* * *

 

Light was still too discomfited by the course of the day's events to speak during the walk (as after all, everything had been a test, to see what he would do, and he had failed at every turn). The sight of an ancient one-level lodge cheered him slightly. Every person he met with an intelligence less than his own was another he could exploit.  

The building, a mess hall, had no merit other than _practical_. There was a kitchen and small dining hall adjoining with rickety long tables and benches. The entire place had a heavy, musty odor distilled by the scent of something delightful being made. Loud shouts from the kitchen drew the pair into that area, where three people were preparing what would be the next day's breakfast. 

It was three women, three different flavors of blonde. At the sight of Light there was a communal gasp.

"Is that him?" The one dressed mostly in black and hot pink lace and little else ran over and attached herself to Light's waist. "What's his name L he's so pretty can we keep him I mixed all the vanilla syrup for tomorrow L aren't you proud of me what's his name?" 

L peeled the girl off of Light's terrified person. "Misa, what did your psychologist tell you about touching?" 

She bounced a bit away, settling to obnoxiously run her fingers through her hair. "But L you didn't answe—" 

"His name is Light." 

The girl gasped so hard she drew in a gnat. "That's so pretty! I bet he's a genius like you isn't he and you two are the best ever and you'll be the best counselors ever and we'll be friends all summer!" She stared at Light with worship in her wide, wide, wide cerulean eyes.  

"Hi," Light said.  

The girl swooned, tipping into L's side. He bounced her off gently with a bump of his hip.  

"L did you see that I want to kiss his  _L he's bleeding,_ " she shrieked. "L GET HIM A BAND-AID I WILL DON'T MOVE." With that, she was running into a different section of the hall. The other two women were laughing, one behind her hand and the other blatant. 

"I'm Halle," said the more respectful one, still hiding a grin. "I run the kitchen." 

"Wedy," said the other. She gave Light a smile that was all acid-red lipstick and teeth. "Halle's my boss. And that was Misa, our dishwasher." 

This was more normal, and Light switched to perfect mode. "Hi," he waved with a sweet little smile that Misa would have licked off his face had she seen it. "I'm glad to meet..." The sentence trailed off as Hal ignored him and began talking to L, Wedy turning away to beat something with a hammer. 

"LIGHTLIGHTIGOTCHERBANDAIDSRIGHTHERE. I'm so glad I could help you!" She beamed as she plastered his hand with day-glo dancing skeletons. The cut, a tiny little thing on the back of his hand, had already scabbed hours ago. 

"O-oh, you're so cu-ute," she whispered, batting eyelashes and running a finger along his jaw.  

"Amane," L snapped.  

Misa flinched. "Sowwy," she simpered. She contented herself with such lustful leering that Light blushed and unconsciously drifted closer to L, who noticed the action with a slight raise of his eyebrows before turning back to Halle. "We'll be leaving now. And tell Mikami we won't need him for a couple more months." 

"Will do. Here!" She grabbed a box off the counter and shoved the thing into Light's chest. He took it, staring at the packages and containers inside. He smelt nitrates and preservatives and wrinkled his nose. Light followed L out, balancing the box on one shoulder and ignoring all of Misa's comments related to his strength, physique, and perfectly toned calves.  

"We're going to get married," she sighed once Light's back had finally disappeared from her vision. 

Hal grinned and grabbed the walkie-talkie stuck deep in her apron pocket. "They've just left," she said into the receiver.  

 _Thanks, Hal,_ erupted Mello's voice from the tiny thing. Then a startled cry came from somewhere in the background and Halle winced as Mello's walkie-talkie was dropped, voices still floating to her end.  

 _What do you mean she's yours? Oh shut up, it's Matt that's got the real crush on her cause_ he actually likes girls—There was auditory evidence of a scuffle and then everything went dead.  

Back on the camper's end, Near chewed his bottom lip and stared somewhere past Mello, who'd pinned the boy to the floor of Near's tent. "You're hurting me," he said by way of conversation when it became apparent Mello was content with sitting on his chest and staring. In reply, Mello whacked Near's hand away from his hair. Near propped himself up on his elbows and dared the other further with a leer that was almost as much of a coquettish pout, and before the situation could progress into even more interesting territory there was, of course, an immediate interruption.     

"You guys," Matt drawled from the tent opening, eyes fixed on rubbing his goggles clear of mud, "I finished putting the itch powder in all twenty- _seven_  of his polos. Unless the raccoons remember us it'll take like a day or two to get new ones." 

"'Kay!" Mello chirruped. "Now lets see if the hornet's nest is still in that tree!"

 

* * *

 

When L and Light returned the three campers were missing and declared themselves explorers when questioned on reappearance. Mello and Matt's legs were covered in mud up to their knees and Near's clothes had been peppered with brambles, but L thought their explanation sufficient. Besides, everyone was starving.   

Alas, the grueling experience that was dinner, both prep and actual consumption, was horrific for most involved. Consider the prep. A meal that was to consist of hot dogs, chips, and several varieties of scrumptious side dishes requiring actual work were mutilated by Light. Not only had he never cooked in the open air, he had never _cooked_ , having a mother who considered it almost her duty to sort Light's socks by color and other stifling niceties. The hot dogs were charred, the potato salad experienced an unwelcome addition of mandarin oranges when Light toppled the can, trying to save marshmallow whip from certain, ash-covered death, and on the whole the seventeen year-old managed to make L reconsider his decision to create an extra campsite to see how Light would adapt. L cynically determined that Light may have faked his ineptitude and neither lifted a finger or made a comment. If it was a plot, he may as well starve with the rest of the campers, and L had never planned on eating beyond what he had brought himself and was therefore spared. The rest were forced to choke down what they could, refusing to look at Light other than to offer up his services for cleanup, which he agreed to (and how could he refuse with Mello flush against his side, after the boy fed him the one mandarin orange not polluted by mayonnaise?) 

The citric acid was souring in his mouth when he was left with nothing but a dying fire and a mountainous pile of dishes to wash. Yagami was not afraid of nature, or of the dark. After all, there was too much humanity present, and too much light. Flashlights and lanterns bobbed inside Mello and Matt's tent (and Light could tell now that the screams and manic laughter coming from that direction were going to be his lullaby until camp activities wore those two out completely). Near's tent was dark, but Light had seen him shuffle into Light and L's own tent.  

No, Light was not afraid, but growling noises kept emanating from the treeline to his right and he was getting a tad nervous. His fear escalated with the volume level of the scratches and snarls coming ominously closer with each swipe of his scouring pad. Light was so pumped with foreboding by the time the last dish was placed on its drying rack L's smile at his return was almost comforting. L radiated cold, dispirited practicality. Boogeyman could not exist around him.  

"Please go back to your tent, Near," L told the camper with a helpful poke. 

Light waited till the tent flap had closed to speak. "There was something weird growling out there." 

"Oh." L shoved his laptop under his pillow. "I should have told you."

"I don't remember wolves being indigenous to this area." Or really any creature large enough to make those noises. 

"It's not a wolf." 

 _It's_. Light slunk onto his bed.  

"We have a ranger that tends the grounds." 

"Most rangers do," replied Light acidly. 

L ignored the tone, noting how hard Light was breathing. "Did you see him?" 

"No." 

"It wouldn't matter if you did, really." 

"Why?" 

"He looks just like me." 

"You have an imbecilic twin who wanted to share in your glory so you gave him the pity job of mucking around in the dirt?" 

L almost smiled. "No. He wants to become me. And yes, he is a bit...it's not safe," he finished suddenly. "I'm glad you came inside. I should have stayed out there with you, but I wanted to see if he would show up the first night." 

"I was _bait_." 

"Yes."  

Light had nothing to say to this. He also thought L might be teasing him and said ranger was some form of snipe or Light would have behaved differently to this exquisitely odd and alarming piece of information. L nibbled the heads off gummy bears as he watched Light slink behind his changing curtain, slink out again in nothing more than a pair of pajama pants and crawl under his covers.

The teen, whose bed was perpendicular to L's, rolled his head back to peer up at L with intentionally beseeching doe eyes. "Aren't you tired? I always go to sleep at ten each night." And there was no way this freak could expect him to keep the sleep schedule evidenced by the panda lines beneath each eye.  

L began rocking, setting chin on knees. "I have other responsibilities besides my duties here and the only way I can fulfill both is by four hour naps every thirty-six hours." 

Light managed to sound both sympathetic and victimized. "Oh." And then, "Are you going to turn off that light?" 

"No, unless it bothers you." 

"Yes. Sorry." 

They were suddenly plunged into some abyss. Used to the constant artificial dusk of a huge city Light felt trapped, he could only feel; his eyes strained to catch something but there was nothing but pitch. Then light flared up again and L began typing.  

One of Light's less endearing idiosyncrasies was requiring absolute silence in order to sleep. He closed his eyes, preparing himself for a torture that would last three months. He would adapt. Lifestyle would be refashioned, the culture of camping would sink into his bones, eventually he'd get used to the freak. With these comforting bits of an almost-mantra Light reflected on the day and assessed himself via the mental checklist he'd created before arriving.  

 _Pry into the mind of his fellow counselor in order to gain advantage_  

The passion for sugar could be used against L, certainly...And that was all Light could think of. He really knew nothing else other than the obvious. Quite galling, that.  

 _Create a bond between self and campers in order to make them more loyal to him than L_  

That had also failed. He was more loyal to Mello than to his own sensibilities and his knowledge of the other two was slim. The redhead was some introverted gaming type (did the goggles hint at cyberpunk? steampunk? adolescent insecurity in the form of conformance of a stereotype?) and the one made of fluff evidently had some rapport with L. He preferred his own tent over sharing with the other two, which was something else to mull over. 

So really, he knew nothing of them as well.  

 _Gain an inside knowledge of the camp and its dealings in order to climb to the top_  

Misa could be used, that was for certain. Oh, and there was supposedly some ferocious human living in the woods catching woodland creatures with its teeth who wanted to be L.  

He tried to remember what sort of insurance policy the camp had made him sign, but L's clicking was grating. It was all he could hear, and analytical thought was finished.  

 _Click tap click tip tip tip tap tip click._  

Half a million pounds and an empire of geniuses.  

He closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 _Click tap tap tip click. Tip._  

"There's a bat on the rafter thing," Light observed some five hours later. It may have been shadows. After all, anything he tried to keep focus on for more than seven seconds without blinking began to mutate. 

"Yes, there is." _Tip. Slurp clickclickclickclickclickclick._  

"Are there bats in all the tents?" 

"No." _Sip. Munch._  

"Are you done yet?" 

"You won't suffocate if you put the covers over your head, Light," L said in Japanese. Light hardly noticed the language switch in his exhaustion. Fifteen feet to the west Mello tried to engage Matt in a screaming contest and Light began twitching. "I...there's a bat," he tried again. 

Suddenly L's face was over Light's, staring down with an empty cupcake wrapper dangling from his fingers."Would you like me to get the bat out of the tent, Light?" 

Light nodded. Then he yelped when L jumped onto his bed and plucked the bat down with his bare hands to snap its neck in one movement, before tossing the vermin and wrapper out of the rear flap of the tent and climbing back into his hammock, where he resumed typing. 

"Goodnight."   

Now believing that anything was possible, Light cocooned beneath the covers and drifted off. 


	3. Coercion

Light woke chipper and lucid at precisely six in the morning, shivering at the chill that had descended on his bed and person, before hopping out to grab an undershirt to wear until he could shower properly. He felt disgusting (there was an odd damp chill that he suspected was _dew_ , which belonged on grass _only_ , and he reeked of sweat and wood smoke).  

L was perched in the same position with a thermos and the sharp smell of peppermint wafted through the tent. "We have a half hour before leaving for the mess hall to eat, Light." 

"We're not..." Light gestured towards the fire pit.   

"No. The campers are only required to cook seven meals per week minimum." He dropped a sugar cube into his tea and watched it dissolve. "I need you to wake the other three, please. You win if they get out of bed."

A sudden fantasy of Mello being drug from sleep with indulgent kisses left Light swallowing several times before he nodded vaguely and stumbled out the tent door. Fantasy was frustrated when he found Matt already awake, lying prone with sleeping bag kicked down, DS chirruping in his hands. A white-blond head was snuggled into his hip. 

"Near slept with you?" 

Matt continued to pretend Light wasn't present.   

"Matt," mewled a muffled voice from under the lump of blankets at Matt's feet, "make it go away." 

The situation was this: Matt had passed out from eating a fermented jar of strawberry jam they'd dug out from under the platform sometime around three-thirty in the morning. Deciding that such an action was abominably dull, Mello had taken a sojourn of the surrounding woods until he'd frightened himself with a mental rehearsal of every horror movie he'd seen involving vegetation and Things That Killed and had fled back to the comforting warmth of Matt's unconscious body. Said body was annoyingly claimed by Near, and Mello wondered whether it would be worth the effort to drag either out to the clearing to leave for the monsters still livid in his imagination. However, exhaustion had overcome him at that point and Mello had fallen asleep as soon as his head hit Matt's knees. 

Upon waking up Matt decided their sleeping arrangements should revert to last year's as quickly as possible.  

"He's not going away," Mello continued to whine. An angry huff and the pile of blankets wiggled.  

"We have to eat," Light tried again. "L sent—" 

Mello's head popped up. "Hahaha, remember Richard?"  

Matt and Mello erupted into giggles. The hilarity of the inside joke died quickly; the giggling quieted and Mello nestled himself between his companions and went back to sleep. Matt shoved the DS under his pillow before imitating the other two with a smile at Light.  

Light's blessed their nonchalance as a chance for aggressive action. Sidling up to the bed, movements almost silent, Light studied their sleeping positions and decided Near was to be the end to justified means. It was quite a pity—it was almost soothing to watch him sleep. A pity, but the cry of pain as he was thrown outside of the tent to the packed dirt was cause for triumph. There was one out of bed.   

A congratulatory victory was Light's when the injured whines coming from Near were all it took for to Mello to burst from blankets and graze Light's neck with the muzzle of his gun.  

"You do _not_ touch him."  

And there was two. Light cracked his neck in a graceful ripple, smirking. He hadn't quite expected this reaction, but it was close enough. "You're up," he gloated. Before either Near or Mello could speak Light grabbed the gun from Mello's fingers before aiming at Near's hand, fingers splayed on the grass as he began to pull himself upright. There was a thrill from the metal in his hand, cool and light. "Mello, if you aren't in my tent in five seconds I'll shoot." _One_ , he thought. 

A nervous giggle was halfway stifled. "Oooo look—"  

Light fired.  

Mello screamed as Near clutched an entirely whole hand to his chest, seething and swearing at Mello in half a dozen languages, and then Mello was dragging Near out and across the grass to shove the other into L's hammock, the screaming ending only when Matt and Light materialized looking as collected as can be expected—Light was a trifle heady from the power he'd succumbed to and Matt was shocked, planning war.  

"That's a first," L told him, looking almost amused. "Usually my subordinates have to get me."

Mello coughed up a vicious diatribe that no one really heard except for Near, but that was the point. 

 

* * *

 

Now, after finally proving his dominance, Light's euphoric burbling wasn't to be quenched on their way to breakfast. He was still outlining his plan for world peace under a hegemony when he began eating the pancakes drenched in raspberry syrup handed over by Misa. He and L were sitting alone at one table on the opposite end of the room from the other three. Light didn't find it odd that they were the only campers in the entire building. 

L glanced at camera No. 45, almost seeing Watari's disproving finger-waggle. It was time to remind Light who held supremacy.  

"—and every member of my staff would get cream puffs for Christmas," he was still babbling, a trickle of syrup at the edge of his mouth too metaphorically blood-like for L's comfort as he watched Light cut another piece of Earth-shaped pancake. "But my secretary will have had those before—" 

"Light." 

"—and I'll have to get larger ones because my connections with the FBI—" 

"Light."

"—because Area 51 was part of my hypothesis—" 

"Light-kun," L purred.  

"You—please don't call me that." 

"I'm going to answer the questions you had the first day." 

To Light, this translated as, "I'm going to offer up my weaknesses and give you the needed information to stage a takeover," as L knew it would, and was not surprised when Light dropped his fork.  

"Yes?" 

"I solve problems." He then listed off a select number of accomplishments that left Light more pale and still with each summary finished until L was quite sure Light's legs were falling asleep, given how tense he was holding his body.  

"That's..." No. He could not be intimidated. Light chose to cough and ask a question instead of indicating he had the brief craving to worship the detective like every other person in the place. "And you're training the campers to serve under you?"

"No, they should be able to surpass me." 

"And why am I here?" 

"Not satisfied with your own supposition?" 

Light remained silent, eager, waiting for the rest of the puzzle pieces to snap in place. 

"You're not second best. But we've watched you for long enough that we wanted to bring you here to see if you could be useful, maybe." He took a bite of cantaloupe as that settled into the egoist's brain. "We've been observing you for two years now," L continued, watching Light's face. "At least closely. Five years in total." 

"Since—"

"Since you anonymously submitted that dissertation on China's foreign policy."  

Light felt as if he'd somehow betrayed himself.  

"We mostly watched your academic record." Which meant placing spies in the student body and inserting a teacher or two when they felt he wasn't being challenged enough, but L would never tell him that. Light would be fed knowledge, but L would portion it with the utmost care and watch the digestion.  

"Ah," Light finally managed. "Were you the one overseeing this?" 

So it fell back to his pride. The stalking would be forgiven if he'd been given L's attention. At least, L thought with a little stab of triumph, he seemed to recognize L for who he really was. 

"When I saw fit," said L. "Your father was quite helpful when it came to bugging your room."

 

* * *

 

Seven tables down, Matt hooted into Mello's shoulder. "Did you see his _face_?"   

"I love L," Mello whispered. "I looooovee L. I bet he tells him what I did with the von Weizsäcker case." 

"I bet he doesn't," Near said around a polite-sized bite of egg on toast.  

"Yeah." Matt, frowning, reached over and traced the skin around a small bruise forming beneath Near's eye. "I put that tuna and garlic stuff in the bag with his camera and laptop that was in that thermos we hid last year." 

"Watch," Mello spat.  

Every mote of Light's attention was focused with wide-eyed fury on L and in the process of listening (L was explaining that Light's roommates for his first year of college had all been cousins of any of the three in the kitchen) accidentally stabbed the table with his fork. For a panicked minute Near and Matt thought Mello would choke to death but with a hearty back-pounding from Matt all was righted and Mello continued staring with streaming eyes. "I wish I was a girl," he began, but Matt punched him in the side. "You're creepy, Mello." 

"To have L's babies would be—"  

"Near look you're so kee-yoot I just want to eat you up in one bite!" Misa winked at Matt and Mello. "You guys are cute too, my little M&Ms! Really Near, I could be your stylist, like, I'm thinking grey skinny jeans and a pink sweater, and maybe some light pink nail polish and white gold earrings..." 

Mello bared his teeth. "Aren't you working right now?" 

"Nope I'm on my break and I wo-ould be talking to Light but he and L are sooo-ooo busy right now, you know?" 

"He said he liked you," Mello lied with a bashful smile, as if he was whispering forbidden secrets at a sleepover. 

"REALLY HE DID MELLO I LOVE YOU THANK YOU SWEETIE I'VE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY IN MY WHOLE LIFE." She dashed back into the kitchen, arms flapping like wings.  

"Watch," Mello breathed, "I bet she crawls under the table and starts humping his leg." 

Matt and Mello collapsed into helpless sniggering for the twentieth time since they'd started eating and Near took another bite, fighting down a smile. The excitement of being at camp, being with _L_ , would have systematically worn off by today and the rest of the stay would have been a battle of Near against Matt and Mello, with L as referee, but the materialization of Light had called some kind of truce. It was a bit foreign and Near felt shy at being witness to Matt speaking more than one sentence at a time and seeing Mello's facade lifted (apparently the liquid grace and silver-tongued utterances masked an entity that was all sharp angles, squawks, and a chocolate-smeared mouth). He was secretly thrilled to help form this new trio, which they could tell by the way he almost clung to their every interaction with him. If perfection was anything, it was lonely.  

"So what are we gonna do?" Mello asked after showing Matt the proper way to blow chocolate milk bubbles out of one's nose.  

"Tents," Matt groaned. He was still sore from sharing a bed meant for half a teenager with two full-sized ones. 

"I mean to him." 

Near poked Matt's shoulder, though he addressed Mello. "I have an idea." 

Three heads bent down and tactics were outlined in whispers. 

 

* * *

 

Showering in the pool house left Light in emotional and physical torment. He'd been forced to stand in a dingy, mildew-stained stall with concrete flooring under a shower head that dribbled tepid hard water, subjecting hair and skin to metal and calcium deposits. To add to his misery he'd only gotten one brief glance at a mostly-naked Mello before the view was obscured by a completely naked L (who apparently lacked any sort of modesty) who told him that the hot water only lasted for five minutes, a fact confirmed before he'd finished the sentence. Light had screamed at the intense and sudden revelation.  

And now, as they walked the trail back to camp, Light swinging a mesh lingerie bag full of a dozen products, Matt and Mello were seeing who could best capture the essence of his shriek.  

"No," laughed Mello, "it was higher, like—"  

So it continued. Any sort of affection Light could have bestowed on Mello other than lust was snatched back. He was growing more fond of Near, actually. The boy was as evil as wet tissue.  

Then, _then_ , his nape itched. Light scratched away without thinking. The second nails left skin the itch returned in intensity fourfold, and now his side was itching. The others had barely walked five feet before everyone stopped still at his scream, at a much higher decibel than demonstrated in the showers.  

Matt, Mello, and Near watched, mute, wondering if they should have measured the dosage as blood trickled down the enemy's bare trunk, the cursed polo thrown over a clump of milkweed.  

L gave the others a single marked look before ushering Light back to the showers. 

Light did _not_ want an escort. "You don't have to come with."   

Plodding faster, L caught up until the two were walking in step. "I would go with them, but I have to make sure you're safe." 

"Oh, right, the wild twin you made up to freak me out." 

"Beyond Birthday is real, Light." 

"It has a name like that?" Light stopped walking and stared at the detective.   

"It's what he calls himself." 

Still incredulous Light continued walking and the detective fell behind once more.  

"What about the other campers? How do you know they aren't being attacked right now?" 

"They have nothing to fear from B." 

"So he's only interested in me because you are." Light missed the tiny frown and nod, but didn't need to see it to know he was right. "I hate your campers," Light sniffed, returning to his former grievances. "Is it against my contract to retaliate?" 

"No, but I would advise against it." 

Light stewed for the rest of the walk and said nothing more until he was scrubbing with masochistic fervor at his wounds. "That's exactly why I'm here, though" he whined. "You're testing me and you need to know how I match up to your spawn."  

"I can assure you that I've fathered none of them." 

Light ripped the ragged shower curtain back, his scowl disregarded by L, who was perched on the vanity sucking on malted milk balls. The scowl stayed firmly stitched in place as Light stalked to the vanity and L hopped off to give the irate teen room to, ah, that was conditioner he was squirting into his hand.  

"I want to go home," Light continued, fingers running through his tresses. "This is not what I came here to do."  

"But the expense of bringing you here would be wasted," was the cool reply.  

Light decided to ignore L for the rest of the day. This conviction was broken at once when L trailed a calloused finger down Light's back, parallel to a deeper scratch that had begun to bleed again.  

"Don't _touch_ me."  

L back away safely to a corner where he studied the cracked cement and chewed on the offending finger. "Do you want some antiseptic?" 

Could the situation be any more ridiculous? In Japan, everything had been predictable: tests and papers and teachers all handled easily with nothing varying excepting subject and degree of difficulty. It had been boring, but he had been in control. Presently he was at the mercy of perhaps the world's brightest individual and his minions and the most they wanted to do with him was abuse him with juvenile pranks. It was unbearable.  

"No, I don't need _an-ti-sep-tic_. I'm going back to the main buildings," Light snapped. "Watari needs to be told exactly how you're letting them treat me. Don't follow me." 

"I can't permit that." 

The punch was born of an unrestrained burst of rage and missed its mark by a narrow margin as a result, but L was still sent crashing to floor, crimson flecking his shirt.  

Light scoffed, tossed his head, and walked out.  

Then he was on his face gasping for air from a kick to his back that hit with a satisfying meaty sound. L turned him over and pinned him down with freakish ease even with one hand yanking his shirt over his nose. 

"Light, it was never _you_ versus _them_." 

Murder plans were quieted and Light listened, the pleasure of seeing blood seeping into that grimy white distracting his focus. But L didn't continue, and Light reworked the meaning of the sentence in his head.  

 _You're not second best_.

"Oh." 

L wondered if admitting this had been worth it as a tactic but then decided it was, as Light would have figured it out eventually, but it may have been much too soon to reveal it. He hoped Light would mistake his shallow breathing for pain.    

"But I thought..." 

"I lied," L said, voice muffled behind his shirt.  

Light was disturbed by the sympathetic calm in L's eyes. His anger returned in full force at the baffling sensitivity from his torturer, because L was still winning the newly revealed game and now had the nerve to feel sorry for him. 

"Get off me. I'll go back." _And I'll win this, I'll become you, I'll surpass you, I'll defeat you._   

"One moment," sighed L, fishing inside a pocket. Light heard jangling, and L pulled out a chain with a definite metal loop on one end that twinkled in the shallow sunlight. "You disobeyed me," he explained as he snapped the handcuff around the teen's wrist and then attached the other loop to his own. "I wish you hadn't. This could be unbearable." 

Now in a state of shock Light allowed himself to be gently tugged to standing and led down a trail behind the pool house he hadn't noticed. 

 

* * *

 

Mello screeched and nursed a finger.  

"Sorry," Matt mumbled. He shoved the extra bed into place with his foot while studying the screen of his DS (which was actually a tracking device, among other useful things). "They're heading towards the archery range? I think. I dunno. It won't go to the satellite feed screen..." He banged the precious tool against the bed frame. "Don't be so butthurt, Mello. You can't be around L all the time."  

Mello stomped out, muttering something about finding Near.  

The youngest camper was not in his tent. After a dizzying burst of panic Mello found him in L's tent running data on Light's laptop.  

"Watcha doin'?" drawled the blond, wiggling next to him with a sugar-drenched smile.  

Near blinked and wedged Starscream between them. "L's thinking in all of this is disconcerting." 

"Mmmm," Mello hummed, and with that began chipping red polish off his thumbnail.   

"Well." Near's cheeks turned the faintest of pinks and Mello slipped and scraped skin instead of enamel. "No, I mean...watch this." He shambled over and grabbed L's laptop, or at least the double he didn't mind them peeking into, and flipped it open. Watari's obsession, nay, mania to monitor every second of life he could stick a camera in front of came in useful. The video Near opened buzzed to life to show L and Watari. They had evidently just been watching collected feed of Light's interview. 

 _"Did you see the smirk as he turned to leave? It has a certain quality to it that borders on—"_  

 _"Sadism," offered L._  

 _"Perhaps. We know he's seen satellite maps of the camp and that he researched the background information of every staff member we allowed to leak."_  

_"And you want me to work with him."_

_Watari clasped his gnarled hands together in desperation. "Lawliet, this boy is quite possibly the most brilliant creation seen since yourself. We need his mind and he's willingly taken the bait. I have no idea why you've been opposed to this since the beginning."_  

 _"His need for control consumes him. I won't threaten this institution on my own whim because, in the long run, it's needed."_  

 _"Yes, yes," said Watari impatiently. "But we're going to tame him. You're going to tame him. He's bored, Lawliet. He'll be surrounded by people who surpass him beyond any professor. This is fruit ripe for the plucking, and we'll cut out the bruises as we see fit."_  

 _L sighed and reached for his melting butter pecan ice cream. "If you insist. On one condition."_  

 _"You already know you can do whatever you would like with the boy."_  

 _L poked at a pecan. "Alright." He stood, shuffling past the man and his hundred LCD eyes before turning at the door. "Watari?"_  

 _"Yes?"_  

 _"You have no idea what's coming." A smirk twisted around the silver bowl of the spoon and L was gone._  

A square of chocolate snapped off in Mello's mouth, scattering flakes on his shirt. He was about to speak when Matt bounded into the room and gave them his summary (he'd seen this video several days prior).  

"So you're L. You're nineteen and never been laid cause you work for a farty old coot that never lets you outside your precious little thinking room and then boom! there's someone who's finally on the same level as you and _he's really really hot_. But!" Matt waved his DS for emphasis. "He's narcissistic in all the pathological ways and would if pushed in the right direction be a threat to humanity, and that's exciting enough to bring him here and trap him and study him and sex him up so he doesn't kill you and make your heirs slaves!"   

Near almost gagged at the mental image of L touching anyone intimately. "Matt," he winced.  

Mello grabbed Starscream and pressed the robot to Near's mouth. "You know he's right. Now all we have to do is figure out if it's us against them or us against Light." 

"Light," Matt decided instantly. "You guys, he's got him on a chain or something." Matt wedged himself between them and the three huddled over the console.  

The view that a camera offered from its nook in a handy maple showed Light going fetal in the middle of the path, with L dragging him along as if there was nothing unconventional about the situation.  

"Glad they got their kinks worked out."  

Mello sniggered and let Matt's slander stand.  

"Here's what we'll do," said Near quickly before any more solemnity left and he'd have to fight to get his scheme across. "We'll keep Yagami under surveillance and trust that L's judgements so far have been correct and if any ulterior motivations L may have put us or Wammy's in danger then—"  

"—Coup d'état," Mello whispered, blue eyes flashing bright.  

 

* * *

 

Light was not cooperating, and L's arm was getting numb, the cuff rubbing his wrist raw. Why was Light willing to destroy his clothes and get even more bloody being drug over gravel? L suspected that if he tried to assist Light with his wounds (he'd had nothing to change into as all of his day wear had been contaminated, and was too anal to wear a shirt meant for sleeping) he'd be attacked, so L did nothing, though he'd cut the tour of the camp short to swing by the medical office for bandages.  

"This is the lodge," he explained, gesturing at a massive structure tucked into the treeline. "It's a major part of the _modus operandi_ for Nuke Day." As they had walked—or in Light's case, bumped over rock—L had alluded to the various fixed celebrations and activities in the camp's calendar but had not garnered much of a response, though "Appreciation the French Terror is No Longer Upon Us Day," a part of Historical Appreciation Week, had brought a look of piqued disgust.  

What could have brought about this change in Light's attitude?  

It was, of course, the linked steel stretching no more than a yard between them.  

Light's first vision of this entangled bliss was imagining himself sitting outside a bathroom stall while L defecated. Others had followed, including showering (trapped in that tiny stall, taking turns under the water, accidental brushes of wet skin against wet skin), sleeping (L, perched on Light's chest, typing and bleating out streams of gibberish, dribbling crumbs), etc., etc., until Light was determined to no longer take any willful action. His life was no longer his own.  

"Light," L said, "we've reached the medical building. I'm going to let the nurse look at your cuts." It was, as L knew perfectly well, that part of the day where the nurse rotation meant all medical personnel were occupied elsewhere. L shoved Light onto an examining table once no uniformed staff member was to be found and procured a box of gauze and tape and other niceties, which he smiled over before picking the ones best suited to Light's hundred scratches.  

Light instantaneously decided with a total change of heart that letting L make any decision regarding himself was some power play snuffing Light's agency. Light would not give up any more control. The pale hand reaching for a bloody shoulder was slapped away.  

"Light, I have no qualms about drugging you. Several of these could scar without attention and they all need to be cleaned." L uncapped a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. "If you had asked, I would have taken the chain off."   

"You just wanted to see what I would do," Light said, voice dull. "And see how much control you have over me." 

"Mmm," L hummed.  

"I hate you. You'll pay for this." He tried to ignore the peroxide-soaked square of gauze heading towards his shoulder, where it hovered in L's hand until Light met his eyes.  

"Of course," L replied. "But in allowing me to do this you must have some trust left." 

As predicted, Light punched. L dodged it, grabbing Light's arm and flipping him onto his stomach in one twist. The syringe was in a vein before Light could counter and out before he'd tensed enough to snap the needle. 

L began splashing peroxide on Light's back straight from the bottle. 

 

* * *

 

Yagami regained consciousness right before a humid dusk. The effects of the drug had left him with no memories of walking (haphazardly) back to the site or being coaxed (pushed) into his bed, though he had been awake and chattering happily about a school play in which he'd been the lead, nor did he remember Watari coming and replacing his laundry with a clean identical set, and he would have been delighted to see the three campers berated, Mello in tears, but he was out cold for that last scenario.  

He gave himself a thorough self-examination once he was fully awake. His scratches were clean and the larger ones bandaged. He could find no other needle marks other than the one in his arm, which had begun to bruise. His head was still a bit clouded, but that seemed normal enough.  

And, most importantly, there was no chain. L wasn't even inside the tent.  

Did L really think himself so omnipotent? Was it going to be mind game after mind game, L unleashing new tortures just to see how Light would react? His profession was ripping scenarios, behaviors, _people_ apart, and Light refused to be torn wide. The next advance, of course, was to act in a way that L would not predict. So Light peered out of the tent flaps in hopes of locating his foe and—yes, there he was, _roasting marshmallows_ with the brats. He most likely thought that Light was still sleeping, would wake just as recalcitrant (or compliant, now that the chain was gone) and they'd resume their battle of wits. But Light wanted to take preliminary action. He was sure L's laptop was encrypted; that would hardly yield personal information even if he could hack it.  

No, what he needed was someone who knew L, someone who had, for sixteen years, tried to emulate him. 

So leaving the tent from the back, Light strolled into the woods in hopes of finding B.  


	4. Pretension

Frantic puffing and the flames engulfing Near's marshmallow only flared brighter. 

"You're impossible." Mello leaned over and annihilated the mini inferno with one short _poof_. Then he plucked off the burned portion to leave the foamy white center for Near. Matt had once pointed out that this ritual was like that of an old married couple's and had received a black eye for giving voice to a truth so obvious. Mello happily crunched his ash-flavored crust and Near swallowed white goop and Matt wiggled his eyebrows at both, not minding that he was blatantly ignored. Once Mello started reddening (oh, so he _had_ noticed) Matt turned back to his DS.  

"Uh, L, Yagami's in the woods." 

L visibly stiffened.  

Near blinked. "You didn't think he'd try to find him this soon?" 

"Near, please don't speak." L popped in another marshmallow, wiped his hands on his jeans, and stood. "I'll need that, Matt." L snapped open his cell.  

"He's close to the mews," Matt said as he handed the DS over.  

"Thanks. Mello, stay here." With that, L disappeared into the trees. "Watari, I need you to pick me up on the south road..." 

"Fine then," Mello growled at L's diminishing form, "go get mauled for someone who doesn't—" 

"Mihael," sighed Matt.  

Mello decided that the best use of his adrenaline was kicking Matt in the ribs. Near watched them wrestle around the fire pit until Mello bashed his face into a log when Matt flipped him. The battle continued after a brief spell of rushed apologies and Mello staring into nothing, and Mello won by forcing Matt's jaws open and letting his bloody nose drip into the best friend's mouth.  

Near looked appalled at such a victory and that was exactly why they did it.

 

* * *

 

After two hours of aimless wandering Light was lost, exasperated, and had the full intention of dying in the woods to spite L. It had been his own decision to footle through the forestry half-naked, and encounter swarms of insects and spiderwebs that didn't catch the moonlight until one's face was halfway through them, and he wouldn't complain about that, but he was irked that Beyond wasn't in this area of the camp. Growing nauseous from hunger Light turned onto a gravel road that must, eventually, lead back to one he was familiar with.  

Oh, there was the archery range.  

And there in the distance was L, shuffling along as if finding lost counselors was the dullest thing he could ever be burdened with. In the darkness his white shirt stood out like a flag of surrender. 

"That took awhile," Light yelled. He waited, letting L catch up to him.  

"I told you," L said, looking almost exasperated, "to never go anywhere by yourself. And you would have learned nothing from B. Maybe how to best inflict pain on others—" the tip of his thumb disappeared into that mouth "—but not what you were looking for. I trusted you when I took off the handcuffs and I shouldn't have."  The melancholic sympathy that glittered behind his onyx eyes was ignored in barely checked self-control because at the moment Light wasn't very far from snapping. So Light said nothing, keeping himself obedient to the plan he'd formed in case this happened, hands thrust into pockets and toeing at the gravel like a lectured child. 

"Even though you're safe with me, B is most dangerous at night and I'd like to get back to camp as quickly as possible." L began walking back towards the direction he'd come from. 

"By going that way? The campsite is south-west and that's north-west." 

L stilled and turned to look at Light with a shy little smile. "You're very pretty, Light." 

Light was chilled to his marrow, watching the smile grow wider, and wider, and wider... 

Before a tactic could even surface in Light's panicking mind Beyond Birthday tackled him and boxed Light's ears until he was a quivering wreck, lying bleeding beneath him on the road. Then B grabbed Light's wrist to wrench him upright and Light, somehow through the pain, remembered that L didn't smell like strawberries. L had a clean, sharp, androgynous smell, and he didn't walk as hunched as B did, and L had a mole on the inside of his wrist...too full of self-hatred to speak, Light kept silent. B's grip was going to bruise and unless he willingly desired more pain there was no way Light was going to attempt an escape.  

Why had he wanted to run, for the briefest second, when he had first seen him? Instinct, came the realization.  

"Where are we going now?"  

"The Lodge." 

"What are you going to do to me?" He couldn't bring himself to look at the face that was L's and not L's (it was broader, and the eyes had a sheen to them that varied between pooled blood and dark chocolate; it made Light's stomach convulse).    

"Play games like he would." 

"How?" Light pretended his voice wasn't shaking. 

"Make you happy. He hasn't made you very happy but he wants to." 

"I think it would make him happy if you let me go." 

"No, he'd be happier if you ran away from me." The cracked smile showed too many teeth and Light grew more nauseous.  

On reaching the correct building (and how was L ever to find him since Light had discovered and removed his tracker some hours ago?), B led Light to the basement, and tied Light to a chair that was all red velvet plush and dust. He turned on a few lamps with broken shades before returning to crouch in front of Light until the two were eye level. 

"I'll be right back with food. You haven't eaten since breakfast." But B didn't leave. He watched Light's face and drew a line from Light's temple to the corner of his mouth with one bony knuckle. "So pretty," B whispered. "So smart. I'll be nice." Then he giggled and ran up a flight of steps hidden from Light's line of sight. 

Light threw up over an armrest and closed his eyes, trying to not breathe in the smell of stomach acid and raspberry syrup. He opened them when there was harsh clattering and several thumps as B fell down the stairs in his eagerness to get back to his prisoner and Light flinched as a harsh wail broke through the room.  

"I'm okay, I'm okay," B chanted until Light heard his breathing slow, and then he appeared carrying a tray with a white paper bag on it. "I brought you food," he mumbled, face still red from crying. "You haven't eaten since breakfast, correct?" 

Light didn't answer.  

One scrawny hand reached into the bag and drew out a squashed doughnut. "Here," he muttered, holding it up to Light's mouth. Now in artificial light it was apparent that Beyond was scrawnier than L.   

Light tried to smile. "Why don't you eat it?" 

B dropped the doughnut back into the bag. "No," he said, "I'm not allowed, I'm not allowed to eat now. I can't eat until he eats." B chewed him thumb bloody and stared. "You should eat. L wants you to eat so you can be happy." 

Obviously winning Beyond's sympathy was not the way out of this.  

"Okay." 

B shoved the doughnut, stained pink with blood, into Light's mouth. Light gagged and B shuffled back a few feet in such perfect imitation of L that Light was almost fooled and reality distorted.    

"I'm sorry. He doesn't want to hurt you, I said he would be careful." 

Light spat out most of the doughnut and shook his head, trying to quell the fear that was slowly turning to panic again. "That's okay, just feed me small bites, okay? Okay? You can do that, I know you could. He could." 

"Yes," B nodded, and reached into the bag again. He tore another doughnut into small chunks this time and painstakingly placed them into Light's open mouth. Light's hunger headache was satiated but the sugar was making him shake and would only make him hungrier before long.  

"Um, do you have any food that isn't…" He didn't know how to finish politely.  

B nodded and reached into the bag again, pulling out a grilled cheese sandwich that looked somewhat fresh. Light wondered if that had been on the mess hall menu today. B fed him that too, and Light froze while chewing the last bite when B leaned down and kissed his forehead. "So pretty," he murmured, staring at Light with hazy eyes. Blushing, B traced circles on the floor with a filthy toe.  

"I don't think that...L...wants to do that. Wants you to do that, I mean." 

"Yes he does." 

"No. He's never even..." Light felt the ghost of a finger trace down his back. _He's never even flirted with me._   _I think_. "I don't think L would tie me up, either." 

"You're right, but I don't want you to run away." 

"I won't." 

"Yes you will. You're scared of me and I beat you up. I'm hoping you get Stockholm syndrome. You're pretty. I want to touch your hair. He wants to, too." 

That blindly justified belief gave B permission to gently tangle his fingers through Light's hair and grip. "It's very soft because you're perfect. I have to go," he said suddenly, and dashed out of the room. Light heard the bottom stair creak and then all was silent.  

"I know you're there," Light snapped. 

Wild chuckles, dark and low. Light didn't breathe.  

Light tensed as B came into view again, hands in his pockets. He'd returned to his form as ersatz L with all the numbing, distant, calculated coolness of the person he worshiped and again, Light was almost fooled.  

"You came to me to try to understand L." 

Light's heart fluttered and he thought that all was right and escape in some form or another had just leered in his face with a few tempting options in hand. "Yeah. I..." 

"You want to take over the camp." 

"I...no...well...not in a way that would hurt L. Or you." 

 "But you did hurt L." B touched the constellation of blood flecking Light's shirt, his own teeth splitting his lip.  

"I lost control of myself." 

"Oh," B whispered, voice sarcastic. "Don't we all?" 

Then a chunk of brick was in his hand, quick, and Light had no time to think before it collided with the side of his head. 

 

* * *

 

He awoke in a flood of light from the Aston, a stiff lump in the middle of a forgotten road, some fifteen miles from camp. He was slightly conscious and clawed at L when the latter gently rolled him over and assessed the physical damage: coagulated blood in one ear, a nasty lump on the side of his head, no broken bones. L plodded back to the car once Light made clear he was able to stand, seething.  

An angry scream followed him as he walked.  

"Show me your wrist," was the first thing Light said to L when the blur that was his surroundings focused enough for him to find his voice. He eased carefully to sitting upright; his whole body was sore and his inner ear throbbed so heavily the pain went through his neck.   

L held out his arm, other hand gripping the steering wheel. There was the mole. 

"Why didn't you find me right away? Aren't you a detective?" 

"B is excellent at being traceless," L glared, shoving a water bottle into Light's chest. "Drink all of this before we park." He hoped the next sentence from Light's lips wouldn't include words strung together to make bits of sentences like, _pressing charges_ , or _leaving at once_ , but it did not.  

"I refuse to work here another day until that monster's locked up." 

Ah. That, that he could deal with.  

"I hate you." Then Light burst into tears. 

If this seems out of form let it his experiences be evaluated. Coming from monotonous, though safe, normalcy, in the space of less than forty-eight hours he had been abused, manipulated, tortured by a psychopath, subjected to physical pain, and was still exhausted and hungry. In all, his present actions were not the device of some plot. He'd finally broken.  

When L came to this conclusion Light had taken three angry sips of water and was resting his head against the car window.  

Soothingly cool fingers brushed Light's bangs aside, untangling them from wet eyelashes. Light shuddered at the touch.  

" _Stop_. Do you think I'll cooperate now?"  

"Will you?" 

"No."   

"Light. Are you listening to me?"

Light turned to glare at L, weary, frustrated. In the dimness of the car Light's eyes and hair were reduced to burnt umber and L wondered if Light would look any more perfect if he'd been less aware of it.  

"I'm only going to say this once." 

Light nodded. 

"I hate losing just as much as you do." 

Another nod, bleary eyes now cold with gathering rage.  

"And what you've begun won't stop." 

"Understood." 

"But I didn't bring you here to make you my enemy." 

"We're natural rivals," snorted Light. "Give me three weeks and Wammy's will be mine." 

L rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hand, emitting a sigh that smelled like powdered sugar. "Fine. Starting tomorrow I'll only keep my duties as detective and all my functions relating to the camp will be yours." 

"You're serious?"  

L chewed on the pad of his pinky. "For one week. You can't forfeit." 

"Deal."  

L resisted laughing at the malevolent smile beaming across from him. 


	5. Irritation

ALL CAMPERS REQUIRED TO TAKE CANOE TIP TEST BEFORE DAY'S END BREAKFAST (prepare at campsite)  
  
SHOWERS (as of last night Shower 6 is broken)  
HAWKING (see mews)  
HORSEBACK RIDING  (blacksmithing demonstration optional)  
LUNCH MEETING WITH WATARI, COUNSELORS ONLY (at mess hall)  
MEETING WITH ADVISERS   
ARCHERY   
LASER TAG ( **ALL LEVELS** )  
DINNER (at Point, all levels)  
SCHEDULED ACTIVITIES WITHIN OWN UNIT (send assessment report to Watari)

This was the uncomfortably haphazard schedule L handed Light after the younger boy sat up and snuffled into a tissue for a time upon waking. He wasn't really concentrating on the schedule but analyzing the turn of events that had taken place the night before. You see, dear reader, up until the mortifyingly childish act of crying he'd succumbed to in the car, he'd been planning a liaison with L that would give him control of Wammy's through mutual respect and understanding and eventual betrayal. The path that L now offered destroyed this plan, and luckily so. The notion of giving L the respect he deserved only left confusing feelings of actual happiness—before instinct pummeled happiness senseless and left a rancid taste in Light's mouth. He was here to conquer. And conquer only.  

Deciding that starting a conversation with L might look like a subtle plea for help, Yagami imagined L dead as he febrezed his belongings.  

"I had Watari bring you new clothes." 

Two extra squirts from the bottle and the view of Light's back.  

L blew into his steaming cup of sludge, _née_ coffee, pretending he wasn't hurt. He made one last attempt, trying to sound disaffected. "Do you want me to come with you to pick up the breakfast stuff? I think Misa's the only one there." 

Light laughed. "I think all the data you have on me shows I can handle a hormonal girl."

Taking a first sip of his coping mechanism, L watched Light leave. 

 

* * *

 

He should have let L come along and act as bodyguard. 

As Misa's fingertips starts skimming past the waistband of his pajama pants ("Are those black boxers or are they briefs? I lo-ove briefs they're so cute and black's my favorite color!") Light had an epiphany and grabbed her wrists. Misa gasped.  

"I really like it when you touch me, Light." 

Light ignored this and pushed her into a chair in case she collapsed at hearing the dire news. She giggled, murmuring something about how warm he was and how good he smelled, and watched his face, expectant.  

"Misa, I should have told you this before...I like boys." He patted her head and hoped for an immediate reaction that resulted in, say, her repulsion of him. 

"Light…" Her face crumpled. "Light, are you a hundred percent _sure_? Because if you still want to…experiment…bisexual…me…noooooo…" She fell to her knees and began crying.  

Light began looking for a box with something suitably breakfast-like inside that he could feed the campers. There were several unmarked boxes and he'd just grab the first convenient one with pancake mix and be off, but when he discovered such a one he turned and found himself pinned to the counter by Misa.    

"DO I KNOW HIM?" was the distraught girl's next question.  

Light thought. If he said he was single, she would insist on playing Cupid in order to pretend a sort of surrogate-girlfriend relationship. If he said he did have a boyfriend, said boyfriend would have been left behind in Japan. Misa would virtually stalk this fictional hottie until satisfied he didn't exist and then continue to torment him. No, the only safe way out of the grave he'd dug (and it hadn't been one until he realized with horror what he'd have to do) was to be seeing someone at the camp. And there was really no other option than the person currently sorting jelly beans by color in his hammock.  

Oh, how repulsive.  

Yagami could swear Misa to secrecy of the relationship and L wouldn't have a clue, and hopefully there would be no other repercussions besides the glorious one taking place right now. 

 _Haha_ , he thought, lightheaded, _clue. Funny_.   

"Yeah...um...Misa? It's kind of embarrassing because he doesn't want anyone to know."

"Well you could have just _said_ L." Relishing Light's jaw drop, Misa giggled and whispered, which meant talking in a normal tone. "I'm not dumb I mean look at him and you'd be perfect together and I don't know whyy-yyy I didn't see this before but I'm so blind when I'm in love!" A tragic sigh. "I'm so happy for you. L is really cute. Like you. I CAN'T WAIT TO TELL HALLE AND WEDY." 

In fact, the entire camp would probably know before noon. 

"I told you he doesn't want anyone to know." 

"But Light he _trusts us_ or he wouldn't have hired us and like seriously _everyone_ wants to be with L cause like there was this one interrogation tape where he had to seduce someone and it was so hot and I really wanted to be the boy he was seducing so I told him he needed to practice his seducing skills on me and he said that I had—"

"Misa," Light begged, her unwanted speech flirting with his imagination.

"Oh but I bet you already _know_ everything he can do. Heehee! Bet all those scratches and everything aren't so in-no-cent huh?" she purred, hands running over his chest. 

Light tensed, remembering the horrific events of the day previous. "Ye–yes, and you can't tell anyone. Please. For me." 

"I told you, I'd only tell Wedy and Halle and maybe Watari and that one hot lifeguard!"  

"No. No one." 

"Only if you kiss me." She flapped her arms and bounced in place, laughing.  

"No. L will get jealous." 

Misa winked. "Fine then, doesn't count if I kiss you, huh?" She pursed her lips and leaned in but Light shoved her off with the box and fled. 

There had been no kiss and the camp would know. And even though such a faked connection to the detective would most likely make him the envy of oh, the entire world, the thought of even holding hands with the pale rickety-framed thing was too much to ponder while fleeing. He still had time to go back, murder Amane, and hide the body. Unless, of course...Light sprinted faster down the path with his box of pancake mix and bacon and didn't stop until he reached his own tent, dumping the box on the floor. 

"Misa called me," L said before Light opened his mouth. "Apparently you and I have been dating since your last year of high school."  

Seeing Light squirm in place as if holding in noxious amounts of flatulence was soothing L's wounded heart. Besides, there was absolutely no reason to let Light know of the existence of the millions of cameras and that L had already seen everything, knew Light's motivation, and would be milking this situation for everything it was worth. He took a noiseless sip of his cardamom-peach milkshake and continued to type.  

Light began to babble as he wallowed in depths of embarrassment that went miles deeper than anything he'd previously experienced, even the incident with the tampon. "I'm really really sorry I shouldn't have said anything but I thought it would make her back off and now the whole camp is going to know and it was just stupid you see she started getting really touchy and I wanted to make her stop and I'm gay so I told her that I had a boyfriend and I thought that if it was someone at camp she'd back off." 

"Oh," was L's response. He hadn't even looked up from his laptop.  

"I'm sorry," Light repeated. 

L, at last, met Light's eyes. "I told her our..." L sucked down another fourth of his shake in one tight sip," _relationship_ is so secret that we can't show any sort of physical affection in public. It would seem more suspicious if you suddenly started pawing at me."

 _You_. As in Light. As in L would refuse to reciprocate. As in L thought that pawing on his part, giving the eyebrow quirk and mildly affronted look he was giving his laptop screen, would be abhorrent.  

Before his mind could digress to all the disgustingly unattractive uses of the word _paw_ , Light let his pride flare. Even if he agreed to the fact that Misa seemed like the sort of hyper-analytical girl who would notice a parody of a relationship they supposedly already had, that L didn't want to touch Light was obviously a lie.

 _Everyone_ wanted Light.  

"Well, we can't not be affectionate or it won't seem real." 

"Light?" 

Light crossed his arms and waited.  

"Do you have a crush on me?"  

Baited and trapped. It was all blindingly obvious now. Sickening.  

"Absolutely _not_." 

"Then why what is the point of wanting this?" 

"Want? No. Nothing. No pawing. End of argument. I have to go cook breakfast. I hate you, remember? I don't _paw_." Ending the sentence with a glare, Light snatched away the plastic straw L had been chewing flat.  

L bristled. "If you act like my parent you'd never convince Amane anyway."   

"When my _boyfriend_ acts like he's four with his finger in his mouth all the time what else would anyone expect?" 

"We're not together," L reminded gently. 

"She's going to think we are," Light snarled. "Wait until lunch. You can bring your duties with you." He waved his hand at the laptop and exited. 

L gave the space Light had just occupied a glowing smile.  

 

* * *

 

Now convinced by none other than that one individual he always though correct—himself—that he wanted to touch L, Light made a mental list of diverse sorts of intimate and subtle (paw he did not) gestures to be used on L the next time Misa was in their combined presence. It was only to prove to the detective that he wasn't the only one (according to Amane's rendition of L's skills and Light's mental embellishment of them) who had mastered that area. 

And thankfully if the detective grew to like the counterfeit relationship Light could brush him off at once without a single strain to his conscience. He'd had dozens of boyfriends and the occasional girlfriend that he'd used until wrung dry (money, social positioning, whatever he could strain out of them) and this would be no different.  

As for the campers, new living arrangements had been decided upon since Light had last been in Mello and Matt's tent. Their plan to watch L and Light had grown into something monstrous. Things that were monstrous needed a tactical base, and they had created one for the three to share. Mello's king-sized air mattress was in the middle of the floor covered in blankets and pillows and half of Near's softer toys. Matt had unpacked all of his equipment, powered by a generator purring in the corner like an amiable pet, and a cooler full of chocolate was open next to the thing.  

Again, Matt was already awake, but sitting up this time. Near's head was in his lap and the hand that wasn't typing absently played with thick curls.  

"You..." Light assessed the new situation. "Get. Up. Now."  

"Five minutes." 

"No. L put me in charge." 

"Exactly." 

Mello's head rose from the murky depths of his black pillow and Light's fingers itched to touch the sleep-mussed hair.  

"What's it doing?" He unwound his legs from Near's and extracted his arm from underneath Matt's shirt. Light didn't know that Mello was incredibly needy, that Matt was straight, and Near would only take physical affection when asleep, and thought that he was viewing some underage _ménage à trois_. 

Matt replied to Mello in Serbian and Mello replied in Portuguese. Light did not understand those languages, which went like this: 

"B really messed him up. We should be nice today. He looks really tired." 

"Mail, he said he _hated L_."   

Matt shrugged and let Mello win.  

Mello offered Light a subdued smile that melted Light's spine and most of his grey matter and said, "Looks like Beyond scratched you up pretty bad, Light."  

"Yeah," Light nodded, dropping the chewed-on straw he still had in his hand (into the garbage, ever-polite), and pulled off his shirt.  

It was actually ghastly. Deep bruises licked up and down Light's sides and front, the scrapes from the gravel not covered with rusty gauze and medical tape thick and sullen across his skin. The shape of knuckles scraped his jaw, and the top of one ear was cut.    

"Oh my," Mello whispered, feeling almost sympathetic, "come here and let me look at those." He shifted closer to Near to let Light have room. (It was undoubtedly unfortunate that Mello's concern was fraudulent, because Light dropped onto the bed with such misery and thankfulness it was supremely awkward knowing L was watching.)

"Do you want to talk about it? Mello murmured, adapting his most soothing L-based tone. Light's head was buried in Mello's pillow and Mello couldn't resist making a face at Matt.  

"No," hiccuped Light. "We have to eat breakfast now."  

Let it be known that the option of choosing Mello as his fake boyfriend had been thought over and then repelled when Light remembered a clause in his contract dismissing all relationships between staff and campers, but the soft touches through his hair and over his neck almost made him wish he hadn't and taken the exorbitant fine and jail time.  

"I think you should rest for a few minutes while we make you breakfast." 

"We have a full schedule today." 

"I said a couple minutes," Mello purred. "Not half an hour. Just a few minutes," he repeated, tucking the covers around Light. Near was watching with nostrils delicately flared.   

"Yeah," Light breathed. His eyes were already closed as Mello began to massage Yagami's forehead with his fingertips. "That feels good." 

"Mmmm," was the generic yet deliciously calming reply.

"Don't stop, Mello." 

"Mmmmm." 

"Mello, you're...my favorite." 

"Mmm-hmmm." 

"Once...camp is over, I want you to be my...my boyfriend." 

"Mmmmm."  

And Light was asleep.

 

* * *

 

Light was brought gently to consciousness with a nudge of L's heel.  

"Mmff." 

"You've been asleep for five hours." 

Light snapped upright and fell out of the bed onto his feet. " _What_?" 

"And your campers have stolen the two year-olds and put them on a flight to Beijing along with their supervisors, for, I was told, an extended field trip." 

"He—" 

"And _they_ are currently flying to Budapest." 

Knowing nothing could be amended and a panic attack would be frivolous to the extreme the mature path was trod and Light grew poker-faced. "Why Budapest?" 

"Because you forfeited your responsibilities I am putting you in the kitchen with Misa. You'll help prepare the food and the menus for the next month. They expect you any minute."  

"Will you go with?" 

"And Light, if I ever catch you sleeping in a camper's bed again you'll be sent home. Your professionalism and integrity are now mooted."  

"Please?" 

A cool look, and L hit the tent flaps as he exited. "Alright."

 

* * *

  

"Hi Light hi L how are you two you look good I mean not together like separately oops I mean heyyyy how are you guys doing? Look I'm decorating cake!" 

Clumsy, wonderful Misa. There was a slick of spilled vegetable oil right in their path and L was about to step into it.  

A phrase, an overused and cliched phrase ran through Light's head and clutched at his soul and even though he knew the true meaning of the phrase and its interpretation by its creator and the overly simplified popular version none of that mattered in the least, for Light _seized the day_ for all it was worth.  

"Watch out!" He grabbed L's shirt and pulled him back just as foot almost touched oil. And it was so beautifully two-sided: Light's own personal sense of carefulness? Or wanting to save L from a nasty, nasty fall? 

Misa blinked her vacuous eyes, decision already made. "Oooo I should take care of that sorry heehee oops!" She didn't notice L's posture correct harshly as his shirt was straightened by a loving Light, who for some outré reason slipped fingers against the small of his back. 

"L I wanted to ask you about Mikami!" Misa burbled. She held up a crumpled picture stained with a good half dozen flavors of lipstick.  

L gathered his scattered thoughts. "He's needed much sooner than I thought," said L, pulling at his shirt himself and refusing to let hormones get the better of him. Light stood at his side, smirking and victorious.   

"Yay I'm so excited I love new boys!" She hugged L and Light both with a squeal and bounced back off, dancing around the kitchen. "LIGHT COME HELP ME WITH THIS CAKE NOW PLEASE WE ARE GOING TO HAVE THE BEST DAY TOGETHER EVER." 

L was gone with that, leaving Light with a new goal. Wammy's was no longer the focus. No, the focus was L Lawliet, and Light was measuring every angle from which to attack. 

 

* * *

 

Light shoved L's legs down. He shoved off the laptop. He placed the caramel and walnut banana cake on L's thighs.  

"Misa made this for me and I'm allergic to nuts." 

"Oh." L picked off one of the prettily-arranged legumes and popped the caramel-encrusted thing into his mouth. "Thank you."  

(Light was as allergic to nuts as he was to power. Or Mello.) 

"I'm sorry I went looking for B. Okay, well, I'm not sorry, but I'm sorry I was rude to you after you went through all the trouble of finding me."

L shrugged and scooped out a fingerful of cake. Light's lip curled at the blasé attention. 

"Just _lex artis_ ," L said, and licked at his finger. He shrugged again and turned his full attention to the cake.  

The reception of the gift souring Light's previously exuberant mood, he sat on his bed in a slump. It broke beneath him with a rusty shriek and Light found himself on the floor, staring up at the three bats clinging to the rafters. One sent down a welcoming present of a single dropping. Light undignified the language of Latin by shrieking " _libera te me ex inferis_!" before scrambling to his feet and running over to L's hammock. He gripped the edge of it and snarled, "I cannot live in these conditions. I demand sleeping in the main buildings tonight."   

L was eating whole handfuls of cake at this point (it was absolutely scrumptious). He wiggled his toes. "I would tell you to get one of the camper's beds and drag it in here but the groundskeepers are disinfecting the canvas. You can sleep in my hammock." 

"Okay," sighed Light, and L slunk down to let Light in. He re-perched himself atop the high end of the broken bed and resumed his work. Light sunk into piles of silk comforters with his back towards L and wondered how something that looked juvenile and cheap could be a thousand times more blissful than his own bed.    

He'd get a new bed as soon as he woke up tomorrow, of course.  

Of course. 

Everything was richly perfumed in L. Sharp, clean, androgynous.  

As soon as he woke up. 

 

* * *

 

"Near's asleep," Mello whispered into Matt's ear. The penthouse suite was beyond what the front desk had assumed was viable for three pubescent boys, but money is the ultimate clearance and they were now settled in on the 47th floor. Matt had gone right to the TV in one of the adjoining rooms to inspect the offerings. It was a toss-up between _Die Hard_ and _Plan 9 From Outer Space_.  

"So?" 

"I want to go to bed."

"Then. Go." 

"But you're going to watch a movie." 

Matt rolled his eyes and looked up at Mello. "I am not your buffer. Go sleep. You can do it. I promise."  

Mello just stood there and played with his rosary, humming tunelessly.  

"Do whatever, man." 

 

Mello considered this. He shoved Matt over. "Plan 9." 

They fell asleep from jet lag halfway through and woke up cramped and moody. Near was sprawled on the bed reading the paper when Mello stumbled into the room with Matt following behind.  

"You sleep good?" Matt asked, elbowing Mello.  

Near shrugged and turned another page as the other two fell into the bathroom together to pee. (The truth was, dear reader, that he had not: the lack of at least one other body had left him feeling open and chilled. The three wadded blankets on the bed proved this point.) 

After breakfast in bed and then a trip to the concierge lounge the three plotted their route. It was soon finalized. They would attempt to lead L and Light on a wild goose chase through most of the civilized world. Not that they thought the two would follow. Freedom was freedom, and they had not yet been fetched by L. It was time to exploit. 

 

* * *

 

 _They're in Kenya, L_. Y _ou must go fetch them or they will refuse to return_. So the text from Watari read the next morning. Watari always used proper grammar in every situation even if doing so lost seconds on life in an emergency situation.  

"New York," L lied, thinking of a particularly case that had needled him for months. With Light, there may be a chance to solve it. "We can be there by tomorrow afternoon." 

Light seethed from underneath L's blankets. "I don't want to go to New York." 

"Then I'll cancel my reservation at the hotel."  

Light spotted a speck of crumbly dry leaf that had almost invaded his personal space. "What kind of hotel?" 

"An expensive one." 

"Conditions," Light warned, peeping out from under the covers.  

"I'm listening." 

"Whenever I'm tired, we'll sleep. Whenever I'm hungry, we'll eat. And no handcuffs. Ever." 

"Okay." 

Light hunkered down again to catch more rest before he was flown across half the country and, hopefully, into Mello's waiting arms (as that had been his dream upon waking he decided to return to it to see what would happen next).  

"Light?" 

"L." 

"My conditions are that you must obey—" 

"—THE CONTRACT, I KNOW."  

"Except for where it interferes with your requests. Please." 

Light rolled over. Six minutes later L checked his phone and turned off the alarm he had set. The time-wasting duration of his four hour nap was annoying but if he began to start a two-hour cycle every fifty-eight hours he began getting a little loopy after the third week. So sleep now he must even if Light was taking over his bed. 

"Please scoot over, Light." 

Light did as was requested.  

"Thank you."

Light's eyes opened wide as L pulled the blankets back. "L! What are you doing?"  

L slumped over onto Light, already asleep, his thumb in his mouth and sucking. He curled around Light with his next breath.  

"My four year-old boyfriend," Light muttered. He absently patted L's face and dozed off. 


	6. Adulation

As the masseuse's hands conquered all the sore and aching bits of Light's body through the help of some richly-scented oil, the brilliant boy contemplated his lack of success. 

He had been at Wammy's half a week and had already had L's duties handed to him, but of course was prevented from exercising those duties and was now only clinging to joint partnership with L as they searched for the brats in a city of millions. As soon as this massage was over he'd tell L his plan as they supped at some sort of restaurant that took reservations months in advance, he had been told. However, the rapturous multi-course dinner and fake IDs that allowed them the accompanying liquor drove this purpose from Light _ever_ so quickly. As a student Light never made time for parties (even social drinking) so Light was led drunker than expected to the back of the rented Aston Martin Watari was driving (L preferred regularity).  

"Light," L informed, his seat belt wrapped around his shins as he refused to sit properly, "please don't enter my suite after nine tonight." 

"Why?" Light slurred.  

"Because I'm hiring an escort and I don't want to be interrupted."

This, out of all the things L had ever said, this statement was somehow the most like a mind game in Light's wine-laden stupor. 

"Why," he stared, glaring. 

"Because I want to." 

That made pristinely accurate sense.

"Can I have one too?" was the next question, refusing to be bested. 

"If you wish," L said, and asked Watari to take a right.

So L's escort was delivered with another for Light, and Light realized how incredibly virginal he was and how incredibly experienced any sex worker this expensive was going to be and blanched at the opportunity of lustful excess, though it was sorely tempting. His escort was cute and slim and hung, and L's was a Korean boy and in a blurry tipsy moment Light _knew_ he was Choi Siwon flown personally to L for his express and lustful benefit. 

"I can't do this," he said when presented with his fleshly gift. An awkward silence fell around the four of them, and L took control.  

"If you go two rooms over there's an elderly but spry gentleman who'd like to see you," L told the rejected escort. Needing nothing further, the group dispersed. Light forgot to thank L for his consideration as he entered his suite. 

His bed was very large. And he alone had to fill it, as L romped around with a gorgeous piece of Choi (it seemed definite) not sixty square feet away. A knocking at the door rescued him from these lonely thoughts and Light's spirits were revived as he staggered over and opened it. It was his escort, playing nervously with the tail of his latex catsuit.  

"The older man sent me back to you." 

"Oh. I'm a virgin," Light blurted. "I don't really...not with a…um. Sorry."  

As both the never-tried delicacy and salesman of said delicacy the escort introduced himself as Harlan and entered Light's room, chatting rapidly about just-talking or did-he-want-to-order-takeout and a myriad of other options that had nothing to do with touching.   

"I mean," Light started over, thinking of the romping again, "I want someone blonde." 

"What?" 

"I like this boy and he's blonde," Light tried to explain through his drunken state. "I—" 

There lay Harlan, sprawled on Light's bed, tantalizing and completely approachable. Light's gaze roved over the barely-contained body of this lithe thing.  

"I can do anything I want?" 

"I'm in your power," he cooed. 

Power. 

And Light figured out the mind game with that simple slip of tongue. His face still pasted over with confusion he stumbled forward and draped himself elegantly over Harlan, thinking the best bet for a camera in the room was somewhere near the TV or headboard.  

"Did you...change..." 

"No," Light said, not caring what he was replying to, and kissed him. 

"You like that?" Light smirked when they finally broke. 

Harlan moaned and wrapped his legs around Light, clinging to the half-unbuttoned dress shirt feather-light fingers had been undoing. Light bent down to unleash another dizzying torrent of kisses and then remembered his plan.  

"Oh." He ripped his shirt away and disentangled himself from the boy's legs. "I'm tired," he explained. "I need to sleep." He flopped over and closed his eyes.  

"Really?" panted Harlan.

"Yes," Light said, barely moving his lips. "Just leave." 

The escort strutted out and Light smirked into his pillow. "Take _that_ ," he hissed to wall opposite.  

Something hit that wall with a very loud thud, and Light covered his head with the blankets. He would not allow his victory to be marred and called the front desk to request ear plugs. 

 

* * *

 

Watari handed a disk to L the next morning. "I think he found you out, L." 

L was all disgust. They reviewed the the taped encounter together and Watari graciously paid no heed to L's desire to watch the lengthy makeout session precisely nine times. L pouted over his computer, picking at his toenails and watching the steam rise from his coffee. Then he became nervous, had to brush his teeth, flip through a half dozen cases, and pout again, still feeling ill at ease. Perhaps he had misjudged Light's intelligence. Had the ploy been too obvious? Would it have been over-obvious had there not been the verbal slip-up?  

The only way L was to be soothed was by beating Light in something again, and that could—and would—happen today. 

 

* * *

 

"Ahhh," Light stared. L was wearing clothes and by that, dear reader, from Light's perspective, this means clothes Light himself approved of, and Light approved of dark denim that hung to toned thighs and he also approved of shirts that revealed the muscles capoeira had formed when L shifted just right.  

"I dress as needed for a case," L explained, remarking Light's even assessment of his body.  

"What case is this?" 

"I'll explain on the way. Watari is tracking the campers—eyes on my face, Light. We're heading to Manhattan."

"Breakfast first?" 

"Depends. How much alcohol is still in your system?"  

"I sort of have a hangover," Light lied, not sure what he was gaining by deception as L pressed his hand to Light's forehead. 

"Alright," said L, his hand moving down to cup Light's cheek. "Downstairs?" 

"Mmhmm," Light sighed without meaning to. L's touch was always so soothingly cool. His eyelids fluttered as L's hand fell away. "That felt good." 

"Misa isn't here, Yagami," L monotoned, walking away to the elevators.  

Light blushed as a sort of self-anger welled over and followed, keeping a cautionary distance behind. 

 

* * *

 

Feeling as though the tonnage of bags he was weighed down with was absolutely nothing to his straining arms, Light was in the middle of a philosophical battle with L. They'd already argued and debated and come to the same conclusions and changed history just by conversing, and both of them were unconsciously glowing as their emotions for each other bordered on a rough meeting ground (L, total captivation, Light, consumed with everything that went on inside L's mind).  

Making a conclusive end to their day the two entered one last store on their way back to the hotel. L explained that he needed to check the paperwork for a few gems that had arrived that week.  

"Mr. Saitama!" The manager of Tiffany's burbled. "Welcome! Ah! And this must be Mr. Kirihara!"  

Light bowed, easing into his rather frivolous role, too mentally busy deciphering he and L's conversations to notice all the employees clinging to the walls and the dimmed lights. He should have paid attention with more vigilance, as he was caught utterly off guard when L dropped to one knee in front of him. 

This had the effect of making the proposal that much more genuine. 

Light didn't hear an employee gasp on cue. He was staring at the little blue box in L's hand as it traveled, up, up, up... 

 _L could not be serious_.  

The manager grinned.  

The platinum ring inside gleamed a Tiffany's gleam. 

"Will..."

Yes," Light gasped, blinking back tears as L stood and kissed him on the forehead. His inner fury was giving him the emotion needed to be the blushing betrothed and he almost didn't feel the kiss at all.  

L, feeling a rush of a faultlessly opposite emotion, whispered that Light was beautiful in Japanese as he slipped the ring onto Light's finger. It fit perfectly.  

"The police will be here in two minutes," L continued in Light's native tongue, disguising the sentence with a kiss beneath Light's ear. "This is the Huntington-Siress case, and you solved it ten minutes ago when we were in the dog park. Thank you." 

Light wiped his eyes and made exclamations as roses and champagne were handed to him and the rest of the staff. He clung to L's arm, shaky and too giggly, and L wondered, for not the first time nor the last, whether Light realized how staggeringly perfect he was. Light himself was transfixed with adrenaline. He'd solved a case _meant for L_. And the entire right side of his head was all tingly and whenever L smiled (because L was doing much of placid smiles and effortless, suggestive little things with eyes and hands and shifts of his body) Light's gaze kept wandering to L's lips.   

"We need to be going now," L said in English once he'd downed one glass of champagne and spoken with the plethora of officials who'd invaded the store. He grabbed Light's purchases with one hand and Light himself with the other and the two bowed their way out.  

Nothing needed to be said. Light knew exactly what L was doing, and L knew that, and it was only until halfway down the block Light came out of his self-adulation and realized they were still holding hands, and it annoyed him that L knew when the realization occurred and dropped the ringed hand at once.  

"I can't believe you used an  _escort_ to try and figure out whether my so-called power-hungry tendencies transferred over to my sex life," Light said before he realized that L had set another trap.  

"What?" L stared, mouth open, his arm frozen perpendicular even though the taxi had pulled up to the curb not two seconds before.  

"I, uh..." Light ducked inside the taxi to cover his blush.  

"You asked for one," L said, slamming the door after he got in with a forcefulness that made Light twitch. "The Monarch, please," he told the driver.  

"Yeah," Light mumbled. He concentrated all his energy on glaring at the gum on the door handle.  

"You think that means I was trying to figure out your fetishes by fulfilling your request?" 

"Well, yes—"

"And _why_?"  

"Be...because..." Actually, he had absolutely no idea if L truly wanted him or not.  

L was patient, and waited for Light to force out something plausible.  

"Because B said you wanted me." 

"Oh," L smiled, "that makes perfect sense. The manipulative psychotic forest man is always right." 

Neither spoke for the rest of the ride to the hotel. 

 

* * *

 

Light realized he was still wearing the ring that evening, reading in bed. He'd have to return it to L in the morning. As he was a frequent admirer of pretty things and the ring was exceedingly pretty indeed, he slipped it off to study it more intently.  

On the inside, engraved in perfect characters, was one word.  

 _Ichiban_. Number one. The best.  

A few seconds later there was a knock on L's door.  

The warmth and damp and smell of shampoo that floated out when the door opened made Light take a step backwards in alarm. No, L's brashness wasn't about to be exhibited; he was, thankfully, wearing a towel. 

A towel slung dangerously low on his hips as his skin glowed from the heat of the bathroom, still dewy from a shower. The seventeen year-old boy watched a single drop of water run down L's chest. The bare skin was an irking _aide-mémoire_ of how L's last evening hours had been spent.   

"Here's the ring," Light said more slowly than he intended.  

"Thanks." L switched hands holding the towel and and it dropped a bit lower on the opposite hip. 

"You had it made for me?" Light asked, wanting to make conversation to stop himself from looking further for any substantial proof that L's escort had actually touched the body before him. This backfired. L's hair was still damp and the wavy tendrils framing his face and falling into his eyes were absolutely distracting, so Light now stared at his bunny slippers and wondered why on earth they were bunny slippers. Then he remembered he had just asked L a question. 

"I asked you a question." 

"I know." L's eyes narrowed. "The ring's mine." 

"The engraving on the inside..." 

"My grandmother is Japanese. She gave it to me." 

"That's cool," was the lame reply.  

L smiled and went to close the door right as Light spotted a bite over ribcage.  

"L? L, can I see your laptop? I want to check my email."

 

* * *

 

Feeling as if his entrapment on the filthy tent floor had been vindicated, Near straddled a dazed Mello and poked at his face.  

"This is why you don't take unlabeled drugs." 

Mello croaked something intangible, but Near must have known what it meant because he leaned in closer with a frown.  

"I locked it. He can't come in." 

Mello groaned.  

"You'll be fine. You already threw up. You won't die and the effects aren't permanent but you need to stay prone." 

"Liar." 

Near grinned a tiny, evil, perfect grin, leaning in until curls brushed bangs. "You're right. I just like you under me." 

Mello blushed and scrabbled at the floor, but was still too weak to do more than flail. 

"No." Near pushed at arms and head. "Stop it." 

"Ungfth." 

"Shhh," Near soothed. He kissed Mello's cheek. "You want a full recovery?" 

Mello stilled as if bolted. 

"Thought so," Near smirked, giving him a hard stare before tipping Mello's head to expose golden, smooth neck.  

"If you're not still enough you'll throw up again," he warned before leaning down and licking a line from collarbone to the corner of Mello's mouth. A weak tug at his shirt was swatted away with glee.  

"No," Mello shuddered, "I meant," and he tugged Near down for a proper kiss. 

Mello woke up and shoved the heavy weight that was Near's actual physical form off his sweat-drenched frame. He found the box of sleeping pills and threw them across the room to exact superficial revenge, and the noise of it (he knocked over a lamp in the process) woke Near up. 

"What?" Near whispered.  

"I threw the stuff." 

"Mmm." Near tried to snuggle Mello again and was startled to find the bed empty. "What'd I do?" 

An exhausted Near whose mental faculties weren't in overdrive and used too many contractions was an irresistible Near and Mello crawled back into the bed. (From Near's perspective, a dewy, glowing Mello wearing only a tiny pair of black boxers crawling across their— _their_ —bed to him made Near shrink back try to quell his shaking.)  

"What?" he whispered again, sharper, to prove that he wasn't ready to be taken full advantage of yet, though his heart was racing. To Mello, the tone reminded him of his almost drugged domination and he gurgled.   

Near's frown was dimmed by the sleepiness in it. "Y'okay?" 

Mello shook his head. "Where's Matt?" 

Thinking he meant to find him, Near pointed.  

Mello crowed and ran to the door to snap the deadbolt in with another resounding yelp, and fell onto the bed again with an eagerness that made Near hold a hand over his heart as if to prevent it from being heard.  

Thinking to reverse the dream and prove to subconscious Near that Mello was in very action the one who would do all the ravishing, Mello bent over a now quivering Near and grinned, teeth catching the light from the window.  

"Please," Near whimpered, but the request was unprofitable; Mello slumped over and fell into REM again as the rest of the sleeping pills kicked in. Near prodded and shoved until Mello was in a comfortable position with Near's arms around him and, too angry to sleep, held Mello and counted primes. 

Not a particle of memory of the entire night remained in Mello's mind the next morning and he whined about sleeping too deeply. Near only made guttural frustrated noises in his throat and looked away.  

Matt did not want to know, _ever_. 

 

* * *

 

What he expected was Light ready to leave for Uruguay, and what L received was a glorious explosion of a thousand paper cranes when he opened the doors connecting he and Light's joined suites. They were scattered in a shattered rainbow around the entire room, and fifty or so had been piled against the door to fall around L's feet when he entered.  

The first crane was unfolded to reveal the words, _I win_ , printed in neat, perfectly proportional letters.  

L was anal enough to open and read every one and they never differed, except for the last folded flat beneath Light's pillow on his perfectly made bed.  

 _I will always win_. 

L stuffed this note into his pocket.  

Just as Light planned, there was now a knock on the door, and L was bombarded by the manager of the hotel who took the time to patiently explain to L that there had been a mistake with L's paperwork and his identity had been compromised and he was now required to stay in the hotel for the rest of the week in hiding, and would he please answer a forwarded call? It was Arkansas' police department, and they were angry. And would he care to take breakfast in bed, or would he prefer the concierge staff to deliver from the surrounding area? 

The loss of control was surreal. L felt for the crane in his pocket and hated himself.  

 

* * *

 

"Wow, onii-chan! And you're the manager of all this!" Sayu's fingers fluttered as she pressed her palms against the window, standing on tiptoes for a glimpse of the sea.  

The Yagami family had paused to stare at the blue and emerald of France's coast as Light led them around the chalet, which he had explained was Wammy's summer residence. This was a half-truth—the campus had been temporarily abandoned by the school but with a succession of phone calls had been restored to glory in a matter of days. Another call and his family were vacationing nearby at the school's expense and Light was lapping the flattery like cream.  

"Yep." Light shoved his hands in his pockets, frowned, then folded his arms.  He told his parents and sister that a tour of the east wing was next, and they could see the campers as they worked. With a gesture from him they were herded through a door to a gallery, Light walking behind.  

B followed at the rear, never taking his eyes off of Light. 


	7. Contrition

In order to summarize the time between L's disseverance with Light Yagami and Light's tour through the chalet to what happened beyond, only the major points will be addressed herein.  

Firstly, Light had used his brief emailing splurge to its fullest extent. He'd booked a flight and researched historical societies and decided France was his favorite European country, from what he remembered of a trip to Europe to relive a nineteenth century-obsessed version of a Tour meant for finishing off an aristocratic boy of that era. Using his analytical brilliance in two hours he had both location talked through with staff and the concierge staff of hotel busily folding slips of square paper. 

Secondly, Light had kept the gun he'd used to threaten Mello and Near with his first full day at the camp, and it was this gun that he held to the head of Watari when he opened his door at two that morning to Light's knock. Light escorted the elderly gentleman from the hotel after a strip-search, handed him over to half of L's protective regiment and ordered him to be taken to Watari's personal summer residence in the Bahamas under house arrest.  

Watari was (and who were they to mistrust L's boyfriend—so Misa had told them) whisked away at once.  

Thirdly, Yagami knew that in order to make his position secure he had to once again seek out Beyond Birthday. An allegiance with B would anchor his actions as permanent. Besides, B knew L, and he knew how the camp ran, and he could be used as a sort of reference guide. A deranged reference guide, but Light could not afford to forgo any helpful options. Now that he had security on his side, he felt safe in his presence.   

With L trapped and Watari banished and B in allegiance, dear reader, our darling _naïf_ was soon on a path to self-destruction.   

Now, let us turn to L.  

L was, to put it mildly, upset. Light had bested him. But natural curiosity took hold once the anger had cooled to something lukewarm and half-hearted and he didn't seek to rescue Light right away. He watched the news instead after both he and Watari returned to camp, wondering what Yagami would do with a plethora of children and deep governmental contacts.  

Suddenly, a mild economic crisis in southeastern Africa was quieted.  

The sixth day, L received note that antagonisms brewing between two European countries were stopped, quickly followed by the announcement that two notorious pirates had just been arrested off the coast of Japan. The events continued as Light and B played their giant game of Risk together and it was only when L received the polaroid of a flushed, sleeping, tousle-haired Light with his head pillowed on a lanky cadaver-white arm that L knew he had to go rescue him at once, making sure B was dead when all was said and done. 

 

* * *

 

"Okay okay okay okay!" Matt shouted into the phone. "Calm _down_ , L, we'll go find him, I'm sorry, it's not our fault—" 

Mello snatched the phone away. "I'M SORRY HE'S SCREAMING AT YOU WHAT DID LIGHT DO TO YOU I'M SORRY L WE'LL COME BACK RIGHT NOW I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I LO—" 

"L, this is Near." 

Two and Three seethed.  

"This is your fault," Near said after listening for a bit. Then he stared at the receiver. "He hung up." 

"I wonder _why_." Mello snatched the phone back. "You don't tell the GDITW that he sucks cause he's in _love_." 

"Is that why you lost the plane tickets?"  

Matt curled into a tighter circle around his laptop and wished they'd just go into the next room and get it _over_ with. But that wasn't to be, no, instead there was an awkward, meaningful pause in which Near and Mello gazed into each other's eyes and and the hormones seethed more abundantly.  

"France," Near blinked. "L said he's using the French campus." 

"I'm buying the tickets," Matt muttered, and they were on a plane by the next day. 

 

* * *

 

Only at the end of the fourth week did B become intimidating, and Light knew the scope of the decision he'd made to allow B to trap him.  

Foremost: Light's cunning had held. The staffers were oblivious. Money was flooding the camp's accounts as more parents yielded to the idea of a European education instead of one in the wilds of the USA, the children adored him, and slowly and surely he and B were following Light's plan to create world peace. But pride at trouncing every idealist and philosopher and power-holder and achieving his dreams was beginning to blind Light's caution. 

Such as now. He'd woke tied to his bed with B leering over him.  

In the morning light B's eyes were enough like blood that Light held his breath and waited for a drop to fall and splatter against his skin.  

"What's wrong, Light Yagami?" B asked.  

"Please untie me." 

"No." 

Light stayed quiet. B dropped a kiss on Light's stomach and Light counted seconds to control his anger.  

B smiled and traced Light's ribs. "You're very pretty, Light Yagami." 

"Thank you," Light forced out. 

"Watch this. Watch me." B dashed off to the dresser where Light's cell was. B flipped it open and jabbed at buttons.  

"Hello? Hello? Yes, do it now. Now." Then he dropped the phone and jumped onto the bed, playing with Light's hair as he turned on the TV attached to the ceiling above the pair. (This method of watching the news had been B's suggestion.) 

Not ten minutes had passed before it was announced that the PM of England had been assassinated. 

"I made my own plans," B laughed in Light's ear. "Wasn't that funny? Let's do it again!"  

" _No_." Light knew he was going to throw up, he was going to throw up but he had to stop B, he was going to throw up but—he dropped his head down, staring at the TV screen. B stilled. If Light could just figure out how to contact L discreetly…   

"Uh, no," B sighed, and dug under the mattress for the gun he'd hid there. "Stop," he sighed as he cocked it.  

Light shrunk back and choked. If B knew his thoughts, what did L know?  

"Kiss me."  

Light obeyed. 

"You're very pretty, Light Yagami. And you're mine." He dropped the gun beside Light's head and began untying Light's hands and feet. "If you would have tried to get away I would have killed you. The PM or you. Which is better?" He laughed. "I would have killed you." 

"I know." 

"No you don't."

 

* * *

 

"You should be working," Near said in Mello's direction. They were being held in a bunker in Poland—the closest they'd gotten to France before being waylaid by silent men in suits. Currently Matt was being questioned. It was all very movie-like except that it was rank with the stench of B's handiwork, and the three felt helpless, knowing what he could unleash.  

Near flicked over an origami crane and looked up at Mello. The latter had yet to reply as his mouth was filled with seedless cherry, stem and all.  

"Imitating L isn't working," Near continued as he answered the imaginary response.  

Mello spat out a knotted stem and grinned, insolent. "What did you want me to do?" 

Near stared at the cherry stem. 

"Near?" 

"I'm thinking." 

Mello began a long, slow cleansing of his juice-stained fingers by sucking on them and Near switched distractions.  

"Mmmmm," Mello hummed around a finger. Near made a hot little noise in the back of his throat that made Mello's hand waver before pinky was swallowed. 

"I hate you," Near whispered.  

Matt walked out of the interrogation room at this moment, swore, and ducked back inside, abruptly deciding he had more information of great import. 

 

* * *

 

As B had garnered more control and Light became more of a figurehead to sate the other's neediness, to pass the time Light had ordered all of L's personal files to be delivered to the chalet. Light switched obsessions. He memorized cases and trials and records and with each folder opened and click of the mouse only thought, _I can beat you, I'm getting closer, I know you now_.  

And, at the end of a day of researching or helpless pandering to his family, Light would touch his wrist and count the links he'd forged for himself that pride refused to to let him sever.   

It had been over a month. 

 _Please come soon_. 

 

* * *

  

All it took was the sight of a spindly hand on the doorknob for Light to sink into his office chair with defeat.  

"You're..." L began. 

"Just shut up," Light hissed, trying to rid himself of shame with anger. He scratched beneath his ear.  

L shoved his hands in his pockets and began whistling a song Light liked. 

No. That was not how this was supposed to go. L was supposed to use his vast international authority to banish Light to an execution block or at the very least throw him in a Scottish dungeon to be fed rat-nibbled bread and alkaline-laced water. No, L was just killing atmosphere by _whistling_.  

"You _are_ going to arrest me," Light said, watching L pull out the handcuffs, still incredulous even if he did deserve nothing less than torture.  

"No," said L, also incredulous. "You disobeyed me. The penalty doesn't change. Action and consequence." He went back to whistling as he shuffled forward.  

"Stop whistling." 

"Why?"

"Because I _like_ that song and you're _ruining_ it." 

"There are other reactions—"

Light knew L was expecting it but the kick still felt appropriate. L dodged the kick, grabbed Light by the front of his shirt, and used him to wipe Light's office desk clean before slamming him flat on his back.  

"And there are different sorts of releases for tension, Yagami."  

"I had created one."   

L wavered at that, holding back the sympathy he knew Light despised seeing. "Please hold out your arm. Don't punch." 

Light obeyed and swallowed down the sigh of relief that the command didn't come with a shove or snarl or sloppy, wet kiss.  

Once snared L gently tugged Light up.  

"Where are we going?" 

"To eat."  

Light noticed how much the chain was trembling. "When...when was the last time you ate, L?"  

L sucked on his finger. "I don't remember. I had something on the plane but I don't remember which plane."  

"I missed you."  

"You, Light Yagami, are second only to myself at lying. Or how much damage did B do?"  

He shoved Light against the wall, pinning his arms down with a stretched length of chain across his body. L stepped in closer and Light flinched. 

"Ah," L whispered. He reached into his pocket and yanked out the polaroid, now cracked and stained. "How did the violence ever come from this coziness?" 

Light took one look at the picture and sniggered. "I made him take that. I figured by the time you got it you might come back faster in case I was losing control of him. It was," he blinked, hazel eyes flashing, "a precautionary measure." 

"So L flies back to Light in a jealous rage because he thinks his greatest enemy has his secret love in his embrace?"  

He had such a talent for making Light's sound theories wholly ridiculous.  

L followed the sentence with a giggle, a creepy and high little noise that made all defenses go up. "Of course I'd come back to rescue you, _you_ , Light Yagami, only _you_ are the most important...not the death of the British PM, the one I helped ascend to that position, not because of the biological warfare B unleashed in the Congo when you weren't looking, it wasn't the arms he smuggled to the child sex trade ring in Russia, it wasn't the way he destroyed evidence of hundreds of cases I had locked away until you gave him the keys at some point...no, Light, only _you_ are important. Because I _love_ you. Come on, there's still leftovers from your meeting this morning." 

Light slouched after L, shame finally stripping him of any other feeling as they entered the conference room, and L made straight for the tables piled with cold food. He grabbed a paper plate and began heaping it high with cheese and pastries. 

"Are you ready to tell me everything?" 

And Light tore a stack of napkins into pieces and told L everything, his perfect memory outlining the daily events and recalling exact conversations that would be checked against the cameras B had made sure to keep on after Light turned them off. It took three and a quarter hours to tell, and L quietly consumed the contents of each silver platter as Light spoke.  

"Now where?" Light croaked, thirsty and touching a finger to a temple.  

"Now I ask questions. We aren't done." 

"I'm hungry. I need to go the bathroom." 

"So, what's pseudo- _me_ , exactly?" 

"I _told_ you." 

"Play nice, Yagami, or I'll hold you here till you pee yourself." The muted rage in his eyes was disconcerting. 

Light laid his head on the table and remembered he deserved this.  

"Are you crying?" 

"No," Light choked.  

"Why are you crying?" 

"I'm sorry," Light bawled. "I'm sorry already. Can I GO TO THE BATHROOM NOW." 

"Yes," L whispered, and Light's head wasn't up to see the self-recrimination in his eyes.   


	8. Annulment

Mello screeched L's full name when Near's phone rang as they sat in the upper lofts of Watari's personal quarters back at Wammy's. Near didn't mind the interruption. Matt and Mello had spent the last seventeen hours yoked together in the full bloom of best friendship, as Near watched them pig out, shove data in his direction, play video games, shove data in his direction, tell horrendously filthy jokes, shove data in his direction, and ignore all his pleas for help. The most they would say was, and it was usually Matt, "But you're first and L'll be _so_ proud of you when he gets back."  

This was Near's comeback now as Mello dived for the phone in his pocket.  

"I'm first," he cooed. "I get to answer." 

Mello shoved his hand in Near's pocket anyway and smirked and fished for the thing much longer than necessary, replying with, "and you deserve a break, baby. HI L. IS YAGAMI IN JAPAN YET?" 

It was painful standing this close to Mello's vocal chords so Near moved back and pouted. Matt clung to the doorway and wiped his DS screen on his pants over and over as he listened.  

"WHAT. L. OH. OH. OH. OKAY. AH. UM. NO. OKAY. OKAY. I LO—OKAY. BYE." 

"So?" Matt returned to rescuing Peach.  

"L's going to London with Light for a case. Then he's sending him home. Assassination of the PM and everything." He was too sullen to even try to return the cell to Near's pocket. "He said we have to move Wammy's back to the US. And make sure Light's family gets back to Japan safe." 

"Light's family?" Matt's head snapped up. "His sister too?" 

Mello's eye twitched. "You and your cliches, Matt, seriously." 

"No," Matt snapped, stamping his foot, "you haven't seen her. She's—gah—and she's just as smart as Light." 

"Unnng," sneered Mello. He fluttered his hand. "Then you can take care of the whole move. Make it personal." He wiggled his eyebrows.  

Proving that close relations induced shared idiosyncrasies, Matt's eyelid twitched. "What time tomorrow? So much planning, so much planning." The door snapped shut behind him and the sound was followed by a series of clicks that denoted all the locks closing.  

"He's giddy," Mello explained. "He gets to breath near Sayu's face, instead of the Sayu-on-the-monitor-that-he-stalks while we get to move the...camp...oh..." Mello ran to the door and began pounding. "MATT. MATT. MAIL JEEVAS IF YOU DON'T _WHOOP_ —" and he fell into the room with Near staring after him.  

"What?" Matt drawled as the front of his shirt was seized.  

"You have to stay with us," Mello gasped, kicking the door shut. "I don't know if I'll be able to control myself if it's just the two of us together the whole time. I have visions, Matt. Maid cos—" 

"Kinky," Matt interrupted, shoved his hand into Mello's face and fighting for his shirt. "The longer you stay in here the more there's a chance Near's going to be clutching his butt in fear when you get back out there." 

"He doesn't...oh. He's Near. He always knows."  

Matt nodded, but Mello didn't see it. He was watching an ant try to go around a speck of something unidentifiable on the carpet and considering the distance between eyeball and ant this was fascinating.  

"And you're going...back to him...getting away from me..." An affectionate kick to Mello's back and Mello beamed. 

"Matt, you're my favorite." 

A grunt. 

"Always and forever." 

"Yeah, sure," Matt smiled.

 

* * *

 

Panicking in a bout of frenzied leg kicks and abrupt frustrated sounds, Light tried to rip himself away from the headboard to which he was chained.  

"L," he called, keeping some element of bored oh-I-didn't-really-want-to-do-this in his voice, "L, where—" 

"Here." L padded in in his bathrobe. "I took a shower. I doubt you wanted to be a part of that." 

"No," Light croaked, staring at all available skin. "L, my hand is falling asleep." 

The key was tossed over in a flash of silver and L admired the line of Light's throat as he arched to look behind him and undo the lock, but Light was still too mentally crippled by his lack of sleep to do more than struggle with the thing instead of using common sense and, perhaps, trying to sit up to see what he was doing. The chain was three feet of even length and L had looped it tight enough around the headboard to prevent self-strangulation or any detriment to sleep, but there was still enough slack chain to prevent all of Light's current actions. 

"L, I messed it up. Oops." Light held up his wrists, which were now bound together inside of one steel loop. The key was somewhere in the sheets. "This really hurts," Light gasped out of surprise as he tried to shimmy his hands out. 

"Where's the key?"  

Light shrugged, going doe-eyed. He flopped onto his side, cheek bunching as his face hit pillow. "In the bed somewhere." 

"Perhaps you should look." 

"Perhaps," Light cheerily repeated.   

A feeling, more excessive than smugness, than satisfaction, made L turn so Yagami wouldn't see the smirk he was giving the closet door. That Light was incautious enough in his happiness to let L see it, and knowing from whence the happiness stemmed, gave L feelings so priceless he bobbed up and down for a bit on the pads of his feet before grounding himself.        

"Yagami, I have an assignment today and you won't be chained but you have to come with me. We're going to a manor house in a rural region of France. I would prefer you return to Japan immediately, but with the time crunch I am currently experiencing and my total mistrust of you it is clear that you have to come with me."  

"What's my role?"  

"You don't have one. And you're not coming at all if you can't find the key." 

"It's on the floor. Then what am I supposed to do?" His voice had grown cold, and the familiarity of it was humbling. L began tossing dress shirts on the floor.   

"You're going to wait in the car. It shouldn't take more than an hour. You could read a book. Or call Mello. Or write a letter to your charming parents, whom I met yesterday. Tell them that they're being escorted back to Japan by our staff because we needed their rooms for whatever excuse you want to make up." 

"I want to go with. Give me a valid reason—"  

"I don't want you there."  

"My hands are turning purple."  

"Light," L sighed. Stomping over from the soft slopes of white at his feet L rescued the key from the carpet, picking it up with his toes. He bent over Light and thrust the key into the lock.  

"Another one?" Light muttered. 

L glanced down and knew where Light's eyes rested: a line of small bruises smudging his shoulder.  

"What?" L tightened his bathrobe and began massaging Light's tender wrists and Light was too embarrassed that he'd spoken out loud to do more than blush and stare at the ceiling and (to L's surprise) puff out his cheeks.  

"What? I didn't—what did I say?" 

"Nothing," L snickered.  

The blushing deepened. "Can you not—" he ripped his hands away. "Thanks." He rose at once and stalked away to the shower. 

 

* * *

 

L stopped by a pâtisserieon the way and loaded down Light's lap with fragrant paper bags full of delicate little concoctions that were making warm spots all over Light's thighs. L carefully emptied each bag as they drove, going through countless cups of coffee that lay in a tray at Light's feet.  

"Can I at least know where we're going?" 

L spoke with a mouthful of croissant. "Dear Heart; it's a château."   

Due to inflection and the mouthful of croissant Light mistook château name for a term of endearment and boggled. "What did you say?" 

"The château's name is Dear Heart." 

Light looked out the window as if L hadn't spoken.  

And then, a few scant minutes later, "Why do you hire people to have sex with?"  

"Moral obligations making your conscience want to prick mine?" 

More morally obligated idealistically than he consciously thought, Light grunted. "No. I just think it's unusual."

"To want sex?" 

Blushing furiously, Light began to arrange paper bags on his lap by emptiness levels. "No. Just. Instead of just picking someone up. I um. It just seems...I mean...wouldn't it mean more if it was...in a real relationship?  

"I just want sex," was the answer.  

Light bobbed his head, not sure whether he was agreeing or confirming.  

"It's you that confuses me," L began to drone, digging blindly with one hand for another pastry. Light occupied slender fingers with a cupcake.  

"Thanks," L continued. "I mean, you're seventeen. You've never been in a valid relationship, which doesn't matter, of course, but you don't look at porn, you never masturbate, you did nothing with the person who cost me 5k...are you asexual? Celibate? Paranoid about catching something?" 

"W-why does it matter?" Light spluttered.  

"I'm just curious." 

"I'm curious why you―" 

"Who is there?" L snapped. "Who matches me?" 

Light's face smoothed into a plane of perfect blankness and he began folding waxy bags into little shapes.  

"And that's what you want? You want endorphins instead of rewarding basic drive?" 

Light mumbled something sinister, and L yanked the car over to the side of the road violently enough that Light's head cracked against the window so hard the pain went to his teeth.  

"Sorry," L said, unapologetic. "We're here." 

Dear Heart nestled into a sort of hollow in the earth so it seemed the entire building was receding back, as if finished with its existence. It was surrounded by lavender fields.  

L snagged one last croissant before he opened the car door. "I'll be back in one hour or so." 

As soon as L was far enough off Light cracked the window, reclined his chair, and fell asleep. 

 

* * *

 

When one wakes, expecting day, and instead finds night, it becomes rational that blindness has suddenly and inexplicably overcome one and until Light's eyes adjusted the adrenaline rush was such Light thought he was going to die.  

But here was the car. He was stiff and chilled and starving and it was exactly 3:23:56 AM according to his watch and there was no L but the reality of night and time, which seemed to bear down on him with every passing second.  

L had said one hour. This was either a game or something very seriously wrong had occurred.  

Thankfully, there was a flashlight in the dash and Light set off after picking the lock of his handcuff, the beam drunkenly bouncing off lavender in front of him as he approached the château. He got frightened a third of the way to the house and turned back as he remembered he had Watari's number in his cell.  

"Do not approach the house," came a tone more sedated than anything he'd heard out of the daft man's mouth. "We'll secure it tomorrow." 

"What do you think happened?" 

"He must be dead," said the man on the other line. "Dead or missing, but until we can get a task force there to scour it I'll have no one enter." 

Light stopped walking. "Are you _serious_?" 

"L is, after all, mortal."  

Light was walking back now; Watari's voice was a false sense of security as crickets leaped out of the way of his feet.  

"But...he can't just die. This is one of his games, like, well, all of this has been, he can't _really_ be dead." 

"Where are you?" 

"Dear Heart." 

"That's the Morel case. He could very well be dead."  

Light let himself into the house and, before he realized what he was seeing, almost fell backwards to get away from the body at his feet.  

"I found him," Light whispered.  

He dropped the phone. 

Nothing but stiffness, coldness, unchanging certainty when he felt for a pulse. This was a shell. What had been L Lawliet no longer occupied the space.  

Shaking, he grabbed for the phone again.  

"He's dead."  

"Get in the car. Come back here. We'll have you questioned before your flight back to Japan."  

"W-what?"  

"Listen to me carefully. This no longer concerns you. You must be sent home." 

All of this sounded perfectly logical. Light stood and stumbled back to the car, collapsing over the steering wheel.   

 _I think he's really dead. What if I could have saved him? I won't be the successor. It'll be one of them. I'm not needed. I'm not wanted. That was him, and he's dead. He's dead. He said one hour. I saw him walking. He said only one hour. I should have stayed awake but he said only one hour._  

Creating a well of bottomless guilt he was prepared to drink from for all eternity the cold, pessimistic side of Light briefly wondered if the Wammy Foundation would sue. 

"Still won't get him back," he muttered to himself. The image of L's back, walking through that field, replayed so many times it felt like a memory created from his own mind.  

He fell out of the car once it was parked and stumbled inside the chalet, only to find Watari and a slew of people he'd never seen before waiting for him.  

"You're going to be questioned first thing tomorrow," Watari said gently. "And then you'll go home. It's all over for you, Light Yagami, unless the next L sees a desire to continue our relationship with you. However," and here Watari's rage was palpable, "your cruel, relentless, and self-serving behavior has marked you as such a danger I had to beg to not have you flown back tonight." 

Light nodded and brushed past him.  

He collapsed in his bed and didn't sleep. 

 

* * *

  

Haggard, the next morning he was allowed to be driven to the site and was handed coffee as a detective named Naomi led him from scene to scene and pieced together L's final moments. The body had been removed hours before Light appeared again and Light felt gravitated towards the spot with a pull that made him ache as he stood upstairs and watched fingers sketch out bullet trajectories and half-focused on the calm, steady voice as the facts were laid out.  

L was dead. He sipped his coffee and thought of the countless cups L had drunk. 

 

* * *

 

The plane trip home was not worth mentioning, other than it made Light exhausted and irritable at the lack of contact from the world he'd left behind, and impaired by the endless vision of L's back as he walked away for the final time, and he held imagined conversations that had never come in a way to comfort himself. When he dozed the voices would continue and he'd dream of glances and whispers and touches that, when he woke, provided a blanket of bittersweetness that took two bus trips to discard.

 

* * *

 

His mother was grateful to see her precious, perfect boy home, and he was immediately unburdened of laundry baggage as she announced that dinner was just now ready and it was so nice that Light had a friend from camp to welcome him home.  

 _No_. 

Hope burst so bright he ran in and almost tripped over L, who was lounging at awkward angles on the dining room floor sucking on a stick of pocky. He looked up at Light, eyes narrowed in anger. 

Light let out a string of sentences his mother would not have approved of.  

"I thought there was drive in you, Yagami. I thought there was curiosity. I would have even accepted it if it was only pride that would have made you want to solve the mystery of my death―" L was now crawling awkwardly upright "―but no, you're told to shut up about it and go home and you _obey_."  

Humbled to his core that L had won yet again, Light insisted on skipping dinner and taking L back to his hotel personally, refusing to say a word as L explained how the ruse had been set up and that his parents fully knew of the hoax, and that there was a room for Light held at the hotel and they'd be heading back in two days. He ignored the cheery Japanese-spoken _Goodnight_! from L and stalked down the hall, his key card from L in his hand and grateful for another reason to hate him, though a much larger and sultry reason was knocking on L's door.  

"Well _hello_ there," said yet another escort, eyeing Light as if more money than expected was to be made. To Light's surprise, this one was female, a delightful mess of copper curls and freckles.   

Light stuck up his chin.  

"Just being friendly," soothed the woman. "But look at _you_. Why does he need me when you're down the hall? You two just don't click?" 

Gold eyes glimmered. "I'll give you a bonus if you do something for me." 

 

* * *

 

Skin rubbed with oil. Hair tousled, as if Light had just stumbled out of the grasp of someone else. Tiny little shorts that Light didn't even think would fit, and yes, he'd had to zip into them lying down to get them on, but on they were, and now, body glowing in the dim light and a pout already on his lips, Light knocked on L's door. 

"Come in."  

Light pouted a bit more, hooded his eyes as he'd seen in old films, and walked in almost shyly.  

Suddenly, this was all so wrong.  

L was staring up at him where he sat on the foot of his bed, looking as if he'd just recoiled from being struck. His eyes went up and down Light's body and he _winced_ , then blushed, and then stared at his knees.  

All of the purring and cajoling and nasty, wicked things Light was going to say dissolved like sugar on his tongue.  

L looked up. "What are you doing? Because I really, really..." his voice gave out and his mouth set, then he tried again "... _really_ don't understand," he whispered. He licked his lips and buried his face in his knees. "What did you do with Aisling?"  

"It was a joke we planned," Light mumbled, hoping to incriminate the other to soften his own punishment.

"Please explain how this is a joke," L gritted out, brain still autonomously run by Light's body.  

"I um. You want sex, right? So...if I come in, it's a joke, cause you don't want sex with me? But you thought you were getting sex?" Shutting up. He was shutting up and taking a taxi home because he was never going to be able to live this catastrophe down.  

"Ah," was all L said. He wiggled his toes and hid his face again.  

"I'm really sorry."  

"How far were you planning to go?" 

"I wasn't. I thought you would throw me out―" 

"At least have the decency not to lie. Until you got turned on and it was no longer a joke, right?"  

Light tugged on his shorts and huffed. "You couldn't turn me on." He felt brave. And obvious. But L just stared at the carpet, the blush staining even deeper and spreading down his thin neck and disappearing past his shirt. 

"Are you quite finished?"  

 _Why_ did this never _work_. Here was Light, at his most desirable, and L was supposed to be all needy right now and shove him against the door, and _L would never stop using his tongue and mouth_ was accidentally thought and the thoughts that followed were slurred together and totally denied as soon as the shape of them formed in Light's mind.  

The denial process was difficult. Light closed his eyes and cleared his throat.  

"Light, are you alright?" he heard L say, and when he opened his eyes L was no less than inches away with a look of tangled confusion and amusement, as if he was slightly sorry that it was Light's shorts cutting off circulation to his brain but _hey,_ that was funny. 

This went over Light's head. Everything was going over Light's head except for L's body heat washing over him and L's tongue as it nervously touched a lip and L's eyes, which were pulling him forward until... 

Dear readers, it was not a kiss sublime enough to be described in full. It wasn't even a full kiss, what with L shoving Light backward and Light wincing in pain; in fact it could be summed up with the word _failure_. 

"What was that?" L snapped. "What are you doing? I don't like you—for the last time, _I don't like you_."  

It was as if something inside Light fell. As if something, unconsciously, had been standing on a precipice, and in its falling jarred Light to the reality of its existence, only for him to mourn the death.  

He stood there for a moment feeling lightheaded with self-revelation. "It was a joke," Light whispered. "I'll go now." He awkwardly turned and groped at the door handle before L swatted his hand away (and the touch made Light electric and the revelation bloom ever more clear) before he was shoved through, and L's fingerprints were burnt into the small of his back and Light went to his own room and tried to sleep. 

L, watching him on his monitor, knew it didn't come. 


	9. Bereavement

"I can't begin to express how disappointed I am." Watari's sigh was deliberately strained. 

One head flax, one milk, one russet sat before him.  

Mello was growing operatic in his show of grief. First he had begged for mercy, throwing himself across Watari's desk until peeled off rather roughly by an entirely unsympathetic Matt. Then he had begun wailing of the other two's machinations against him until this fell flat with many a cool stare. He switched to a welcome tirade against B, bolstered by understanding nods, before dissolving into a mess of tears and mucus.  

Watari proffered a near-transparent handkerchief and this was enough of a gag to diffuse.  

"You have underwhelmed in every area and now things are advancing at a critical pace," the old man hissed. He grabbed a ruler and smote his desk thrice. " _A. Critical. Pace_. Where are L and Light?"  

Eager for reparations, Mello bubbled over. "In Japan and Light tried to—" 

Matt's head lowered as he choked on giggles. Near snorted.  

Mello decided the sentence was best left a fragment. Not only had that tape been too uncomfortable for them to review, the idea that both L and Light had reached a level where both were besotted and refused to communicate clearly about this was personally painful to two of the campers, as it mirrored their own lives in such a way that there was many an uncomfortable silence and sulky glance throughout the proceedings.  

"But they DIDN'T," Watari bellowed with such force Mello dropped his sodden hanky. Mello didn't quite understand why he felt so guilty in two separate spheres of his life. 

Near made a face, guilt needing permission to enter his thoughts. "You want them to?"  

"My boy," said Watari gravely, looking down his nose, "that has been the entire point."  

"If you had let us—" he snapped, standing abruptly.  

"It was beyond my power unless you wanted L to know," Watari interrupted, each word leaving his teeth with vinegar. "But we are to that point."  

Near ignored Matt and Mello's stares, scrutinizing Watari with annoyance. "We're taking over," he informed the old man. "L is too consumed by his feelings to be a leader anymore."  

"It is with a heavy heart," droned Watari, "that I must say I cannot allow that."  

"When have I ever needed permission?" Near leered.   

Mello felt a little flutter of happiness at the vitriol on Near's face that matched his own exactly in a wash of warm narcissism. Evidently in an unsullied, literary foil-ish sort of way, Near now harmonized with Light in motives. And whilst L was his idol, Near was the boy who had his heart, and his heart always won.  

"Near!" Mello grabbed his wrist and threw him to his chair. "Listen to Watari. He knows what's best for L."  

Watari beamed. "Thank you, Mihael. It is time for the three of you to prepare for Wilderness Survival Week. L and Light will be dealt with. By me _alone_. Thank you, and good day." He grabbed a thousand-page tome and began to flip to his bookmark, and with that the campers were told good riddance. 

Flax, milk, and russet head bobbed down the hallway and whispered. Surely not tonight. L and Light's journey was long. Watari may not even let Light back onto camp property. It was rather a disaster from any angle they fought from and the trio decided to sleep on it after Matt suggested a visit the kitchens to see if anything of import could be sweet-talked from the blondes. Rumor had escaped that they had been handed the addition of a man named Mikami whose purpose had not yet been wheedled from either a hard drive or a person and it was time to see if anyone would now be forthcoming.  

Besides, they had a bit of time. 

 

* * *

 

Mikami had decided that every child he'd met so far had been good, his word that spanned a thousand connotations to equalize in one solid feeling of pleasant geniality—a dullard's estimation of the world around him.  

But he wasn't hired for intelligence. Rather, it was through fact-checking his physical appearance against Light's previous paramours that had led to the interview, the acceptance of a signed contract, and Mikami's flight to the wilds of the United States.  

The kitchen staff adored him. He was obedient, attractive, and docile. Misa was overjoyed that such a becoming man was open to so many hugs over the course of a single day. He even allowed her to watch his morning workout, which Wedy had become participant in once she had been impressed enough by his routine. Misa had refused the invitation to join. In fact the entire delight had lost charm with the addition of a third and she quickly found excuses to be elsewhere. 

"I still don't really know," Halle said to the campers when they demanded an explanation for Mikami's hiring. Mello acted as mouthpiece—Near already was certain he knew and Matt went mysteriously mute around Halle with enough regularity to be openly teased.  

("She looks like Mello," Near had implied once when the two were alone. Near had been snuffling out barriers to very personal feelings at the time. Matt had shoved Near over and farted on his face. "Maybe if Mello was anywhere near decent-looking. And a girl. I'm not L. Penis no-no," had been the reply once Near was released from odious confines, and Near was content.)  

"But it has to do with Light," snapped Mello, waving chocolate in Halle's face.  

She snatched it out of his hand with reproach. "Your teeth will rot. Of course it _had_ to do with Light. How do you know Light is returning? He assassinated a PM. And how do you know L himself is returning?"  

"Why would L not return?"  

"A PM was assassinated," Halle repeated gently. "Really, boys, think it through. L is not infallible."  

To Mello, L's most grievous mistakes were always the consequence of some shadowy other, currently taking Light Yagami's form. He made an impatient gesture. "Thanks, Hal. Is there any pie left?"  

"No. Go back to your camp." She gave Mello his chocolate back. "If you are going to interfere, act quickly. Watari expects Light and L back this afternoon. I doubt it's a conversation you want to miss hearing."  

There was no time to hear it, staging a _coup_ and all. They Cheshire-grinned in turn, shrugged shoulders, and turned away to laugh. Halle sighed, noting that the three's laugh was close to becoming identical. She watched them walk away, seeing the accidentally-on-purpose touches of Mello and Near's hands, the forgotten DS in Matt's back pocket.  

At least if L were to fail, those three would not. 

 

* * *

 

It was Mikami who sat at Watari's desk when L and Light walked in.  

He was a fluster of fed apologies. Watari's new personal assistant, he explained. Kitchen staff a glut, Watari having fired his personal attendants just a day ago (something about an assassination—Mikami smiled gently and murmured he wasn't exactly sure).  

L wasn't surprised. It was unexpected, but not an unsatisfactory or really shocking change. He thought of Mikami as a sort of dog that only needed the right training and knew Watari thought the same, or would use this for his own gains was not out of the ordinary. To Light, he was grateful. The return to camp (his polo a lurid pink this time) was both a relief and a forgiveness and any stutter in the normal pattern was a minor hiccup to what his life had been for the past couple months. He fell into a chair before Watari's desk relaxed, fingering the tassels decorating the arm.  

L refused to sit. "Well, Mikami, what's next?" 

"Wilderness Survival Week starts tomorrow!"  

Light sniffed. "Do you usually participate, L?"  

"No," L responded. "It's a gross exercise in survival skills. Foraging. Trench-digging. Compass-losing. I can use my time for greater purposes."  

"I bet you would excel, Light," murmured Mikami in the duo's native tongue.  

L was not annoyed by Mikami's attraction. It was unremarkable. If L was supposed to feel a stab of jealousy every time Light was approached, flirted with, or pandered to, he'd have been dead from the start.   

"Yes," Light said, also in Japanese. "Except perhaps for the cooking bit." The supper of his first night still haunted his nose.  

"I'm an excellent cook." Mikami made his way round the desk until he was in front of Light, leaning back against the mahogany with the relaxed posture of Light himself. L felt the situation shift, now an outsider to the two's private conversation. It irked.  

L watched Light's eyes drag down the body before him, and then returned to examining the tassels running through his fingers with nonchalance. Was that a blush?  

"Well, we always need a connection to Watari wherever we go. Maybe if I participated—if I'm allowed to keep my duties as counselor—you could be my personal cook for the week." The smile he gave Mikami was warm, fluid, an invitation. It teased, non-serious. In his eyes was an intentness L had really never seen before. This was real flirting.  

"Watari's PA always stays with him," was L's disposal of Light's solicitation. It was time to leave—it mattered not where to. He had learned enough.  

"I want to go," Light said as soon as they were in the hallway, on their way to pick up the Aston from the garage. "If I am supposed to be a counselor—" 

"—You've never—" 

"—Facades are important."  

"Like your attraction to Mikami?"  

Light winced. "Did it show?"  

No facade. True attraction. Mutual attraction. 

"Not everything I do is a trick," came the rest with a flush. "Sometimes I'm attracted to someone because I think they're attractive."  

Why had L hired Mikami, again? Oh, that was back when he was cautious, before he had given himself over fully, back when he wanted to give Light a plaything to stifle his own crush and keep Light from becoming any sort of emotionally attached to L himself, had that ever been a possibility.   

Ah, how much ache it caused when plans worked only halfway.  

"Perhaps this could be your first real relationship," L offered with a numbness to his lips.  

Light laughed, bright and yielding. The sound went straight to L's gut. "I think I'll try to be more professional this time, L. What am I going to do anyway, help you with casework?" 

"No," said Near, behind them.  

They turned with mutual vexation.  

"Near, I always concentrate on casework during WSW. Light can join me or he can join the campers. It doesn't matter."   

Oh dear. L was choosing to lose. They could not let him.  

"I want to camp," said Light. "I want to be a real counselor this time around."  

And Light now thought that winning meant something much more tame than he had previously. He was humbled and acquiescent.  

Oh dear.  

"Alright," Near shrugged, fingers going to his hair. "Light, good luck. Same to you, L. Jane Doe 451 is getting interesting." He turned on his cottoned heel and trod off.  

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.


	10. Destruction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic takes the throw-away character design for Ryuk where Ryuk is a deformed babe.

Mikami was walking down a hallway that looked exactly like the past three, and thus admitted himself lost. He'd paused to look about when a door, unmarked, revealed an arm that clawed out and pulled him into total darkness. 

He would have yelled had not a mouth been so quickly on his. 

Oh, _this smell_ , and, dear readers, if there was something that had been trapped in Mikami's senses since their encounter, it had been Light's smell, and now it was _this taste_ , and he pushed Light back against the wall to revel in this flavor as earnestly as he could. 

 

* * *

 

Misa's anger was consuming. It consumed her breakfast, it consumed the bodies of some rather fit counselors-in-training with heavy looks, it swatted three insects in quick succession as she stormed around the mess hall with her flyswatter held like a sword. She was throwing wet wipes to the six year-olds as you'd throw treats to a pack of dogs when Wedy told her to take a break with a sharp look and she stormed off to the kitchen staff's apartments in a self-pitying sulk.

Mikami had left his door open.

Mikami was suspicious, she had decided from the start, and now she peered into the dimness feeling exonerated from her anger. 

If Wammy's encouraged anything, she thought as she stepped inside, it was deduction and sleuthing. She needed to make sure that Light was safe. After the trio of heirs had shown the trio of blondes the video of Mikami's introduction to Light and L, she now understood that the spark of desire between Mikami and Light was very real. It was off-putting, how inelegantly other people could make plans go awry. Misa needed to make sure that Mikami wasn't conspiring to take Light away from L and break L's heart (fully aware that Light was doing this all on his own but perhaps, perhaps she could help in some small way and perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps, _perhaps_ she would rise above kitchen scullion to something greater). 

With a sharp giggle she approached Mikami's bed. 

Here were all the possessions Mikami had brought with him in one tasteful black duffle. (He had _that_ , at least.)

She unzipped it greedily. 

"Death Note," she read aloud; the little black notebook was at the very top of the neat stacks of clothes. It looked cheap, like it was sold from some site with an abundance of midis and grungy swirls, but the frayed edges showed valid use. Perhaps it was some sort of diary? 

And then she touched it. 

 

* * *

  

L felt equalized as he sat in his personal quarters and read his email. This was a restoration. Room and mind became a joined sanctuary as he typed, a bag of yogurt-covered pretzels at his feet and three betwixt toes as he delicately fed himself foot to mouth. Near was correct, this Jane Doe was quite engrossing. He could almost forget Light existed. 

A knock at the door.

Light's color was up and his mouth more plump than L had seen it in weeks, and only after a tease with an escort. A pretzel melted free and plopped to the floor; he ignored this (but not the flicker of bare disgust in Light's eyes when he caught the fact—and why, why had L devoted himself to this idea in such a thoroughly masochistic fashion?).  

"Yagami." 

"During WSW," Light recited—and L noted that he pronounced the acronym correctly, as _wish-yew_ —"small teams of staff and campers, or, alternately, pairs of staff are abandoned in a designated area far from camp to learn from the survival skills taught the total five weeks prior. Who are my campers? Who is my counselor?" 

"Watari will tell you." 

"I'm supposed to be paired with you." 

L hunkered over his laptop as if it could protect him. "I made a mistake, Yagami. You should not have been allowed to return."

"So you're pretending it wasn't your decision?" 

"It is one I regret, but I won't bereft you the choice to finish your tenure with us." His mouth was flat now, a pale line as awkward as his formality. "However, I think it best if we no longer work together." 

It was truly over. L's heartbreak was now real. 

Black eyes looked up from under bangs. Light's breath stunted in his lungs at the ferocity of the glare. 

"I _could_ still send you back to Japan." 

"Oh," Light sneered, vitriol bubbling, his heart still hurting from the discovery that L was really all he wanted in the end and that had been denied him since the beginning, "yes, lift your sticky pinky toe right now and call for your enablers to send me away so you can forget I was ever a _wanted_ part of your life and that when you didn't get to _coerce_ me right away I became a _game_." 

L shrugged.

The dismissal-admittance was the impetus they both wanted. 

Seven seconds later and L's laptop was cracked from a kick and Light was on his knees, L's hand fisting his hair and Light's chin up and defiant and checked. Light chirruped, "this isn't really how I imagined _this_ " and what he really deserved, they both knew, was a lovely solid punch, no elegance or grace about it, and L's shoulder went back as Light started coughing. 

 

* * *

 

_"Are you alright, Misa?"_

_Misa jumped._

 

* * *

 

Red stained Light's chin and the horror on his face went to L's bowels.  

 

* * *

 

_"Matsuda." She clamped one pink-tipped hand on his shoulder and pulled him closer. The look she was giving him suggested some cat-and-mouse game where he was already in her teeth, so full of righteous self-satisfaction was she._

_"I got a boyfriend."_

 

* * *

 

L can _smell_ it, it's pooling on the floor and he's reaching for his phone—

 

* * *

 

_"He looks like a rockstar," she purred, voice dropping to sultry levels that made Matsuda's throat tighten. "His name is Ryuk." He's beautiful, she wanted to brag, he has deliciously shaggy hair that gets into his lashes and makes him look dangerous, some of his skin is the color of maggot flesh and some of it is the color of bruises and he has all the horrible beauty of a Frankenstein monster._

 

* * *

 

L doesn't quite know what he's saying because Light's terrified sobbing is making thought staccato—he has to concentrate—

 

* * *

 

_But Misa said none of this, though Matsuda's face was all resentful curiosity, and now she held out a page of torn notebook paper with names scrawled in pink._

 

* * *

 

Light is crying now but it's coming in choked gurgles, Light is pleading— 

 

* * *

 

 _"I found this thing called a death note in Mikami's stuff," she whispered with a hunger that made him blush. "I've written so many names in it already!"_  

 

 


	11. Ascension

Afterwards, when he was back in Life, Light would describe dying as taking his first true breath. The past was now a black void of before with no precipice to endanger. This was usually said to a guest of some renown—traditionally as they sat before a fireplace, firelight trapped in the ice of their drinks giving the story a warmth it did not deserve. The guest would nod at so apt a metaphor and ruminate on this singular experience, grateful for warm toes and a stomach full of something delicious. If anyone could be a modern Odysseus, it would be Light Yagami. Light, more humble at this point, never corrected the assumption that the story was anything but a tall tale, not even with a smirk into his drink.

Yagami, in death, now only had himself, whole and without any conflating appendages to constrict. Light felt such an acute ascension to freedom he stood in the grayness and laughed. Gone was the stranglehold of the Japanese academic system, gone was a future already decided by his intelligence, gone were the feelings for L now that he was muted out with such haste, gone was that horrible climax eternally suspended between his future and the scenes he had just exited. So there was an afterlife, he marveled, thinking of the little corner shrine at home.

Would anyone here know his identity? He began to walk, and soon came upon charnel piles of creatures uncertain. Would he be able to start his identity afresh with skills intact? He studied himself as he walked in the grayness that clung to him like smog—his clothes, still bloodied, his mental prowess, quizzing himself on the esoteric, his memory. It was confounding, this blankness that gave no information, and he wondered what sort of afterlife this was meant to be.

Light Yagami was seventeen and a naif when he passed the threshold of Wammy's Sleepaway Camp for half a million pounds. Three months later, he walked onward into the nothingness with the privileged certainty that he was _Light Yagami_ and would overcome.


	12. Collusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this fic's Ryuk is the throwaway design for Ryuk where he was a hot malformed babe. ;|

Matsuda slammed into L so hard he bounced off and tripped backwards, teetering before regaining his balance in a puff of breath that didn't wait for soles to connect to carpet before he started talking. 

"Misa used a shinigami with a notebook to kill everyone!" 

L stared. 

He was standing with Mello in his panic room. Though he did not fear assassination or death at this point, this was protocol, and it allowed him to ignore the chain of command running amok to focus. The death of Light Yagami in L's private quarters was such a storm of terror to the entire Wammy system that all campers and staff had been dismissed for the residue of days clinging to August exactly one hour after Light's body exited L's living room. It was nothing like the panic when Wedy had followed, decapitated by an errant knife, or when Matt choked to death on lunch, or when Near, stepping onto the bus to the airport, went into anaphylactic shock and died hearing Mello's screams. 

Wammy's Sleepaway Camp was in shambles of grief and bewilderment. 

Now L stood in his panic room with a Mello who could not stop shaking. 

Matsuda had been allowed entry because he was the last person to see Misa Amane before she vanished and now he stood before the stricken pair flushed, having run as quickly as he could. He was just a lowly counselor, and though L knew all staff by name, it had taken convincing and some checks before he was given the clearance that allowed him into this sanctum. 

"A death god?" L whispered. A bit of color returned to his cheeks at this hint of something to mull over. 

"Have you ever heard of a death note?" Matsuda was cautious. He wasn't sure how well-versed L was in urban legends that were specific to Tokyo, and an unpopular one that had only come into existence in the past decade or so. 

"Urban legend." 

"Apparently not." 

"Did you see it?" 

"Don't scream," and with that the scrap of paper shown to Matsuda was pressed into L's hand. 

He did not scream when the shinigami materialized. One, he expected it, two, he had seen more gruesome things than this man, and three, according to legend, these creatures were dullards. Death and time have the tendency to rot the sensibilities, apparently. 

Matsuda was not surprised by L's non-reaction, but by what L said as he passed the note to Mello, who yelped. 

"You took him from me." Though he was not turned to face the shinigami directly, the glare given to Light just that day now held the dead eyes so firmly the shinigami stopped waffling about and stilled.  

Ryuk didn't like this many people seeing him at once. He was unsure as to whether this was all really fair. "I was bored," was the petulant reply, breaking L's gaze. He began poking around the shelves of the panic room, which were supplied with hope-giving miscellany. "Do you have dried fruit? I like apples." 

"How dead are they?" 

"Very," Ryuk said, in a tone meant to be soothing. "I take care of everyone properly." He sniffed. "I don't like insults." 

"Where is Misa Amane?" 

"Oh, she wanted to die too. After she saw it." 

"Saw what?" 

"That people _died_. You only have banana chips on this shelf. Are there apples or not?" 

"There's mango," said Matsuda helpfully, pointing to a small container. 

"Matsuda," L snarled. Even Mello recoiled. 

Ryuk wafted over to where Matsuda had pointed. "Misa's death was painless as well," he assured. "She is going to become a shinigami so she can be my girlfriend." 

L giggled, which Mello and Matsuda confirmed as inappropriate with a sidelong glance. 

Ryuk attempted to open the container full of dried mango, but this failed due to long-broken fingers and overgrown nails. "I can tell you when you're going to die, you know," he offered, and thrust the container at Matsuda to open. Matsuda complied. He was in the presence of a grim reaper. He would do anything it asked. Mello was watching this scenario with a sort of wretched fascination. Ryuk, now happily eating, seemed to forget the other three were even present. 

"I don't care about when I die," huffed L, snatching the mango slices away from Ryuk and shoving them back onto the shelf. "If you kill me, can I get to where they went, and then return?" 

Mello began his best impression of a suffocating fish. 

"Those were mine!" Ryuk whined, bouncing in the air. "If you won't give me apples then I want mango! I found them and you have to give them back!"

Oh, he and Amane were perfect for each other. 

L's face twisted as he prepared his retort and Matsuda, ever the enabler of forthrightness, decided to interrupt before feelings escalated even more. "Where _they_ went, you mean," he was bold enough to correct. The bias L's questions were taking was unnerving…surely the rumors weren't true? 

"He," L corrected in turn. "Light is the most valuable of the dead and if I can only bring back one person will be him. There is the chance that is all I'm allowed." 

This made no sense to Mello. As far as the trio could gather, Light had been dismissed by L as so much bellybutton fluff as soon as they had returned from Japan and Mikami had entered the picture. If it had only been a lovelorn sulk and L was putting on his armor to be the knight to Light's princess, Mello wasn't sure if Death was a permissible dragon. A shinigami, yes, but playing with mortality itself seemed arrogant even for Lawliet. For once, Mello doubted. 

Matsuda threw up his hands. "What about Amane?" The shout was in Japanese. "She doesn't count because she did this? It was an _accident_. No one knew that thing would really work! What about your mental progeny? _They_ haven't assassinated anyone lately." 

L rounded in him at once. "I took full responsibility for that." 

"Is that why was Light allowed to come back?"

"He'd already done the most damage he could have," L tried to explain, over-enunciating from pure irritation. "Trying to take control of the school _twice_ would be _irrational_. And technically it wasn't _Light_ who carried out the assassination." 

" _Technically_ doesn't count," retorted Matsuda, waving his hands and knocking over a flashlight. "Just admit why you want to rescue him! Everyone knows!" 

Mello sucked in a breath. 

L's thumb went to his mouth as he thought seriously. "I thought it would be obvious," he said softly. "But it's not what you're suggesting. Light is very talented at assimilating into a culture on immediate contact and using that assimilation to gain power. There is no reason for him to change in an afterlife." 

"Well!" said Matsuda with a blush, having now betrayed the gossip of the entire Wammy workforce. "Then we have to find him! And the rest if we can!"  

Ryuk was now in a tizzy of envy. He drooled, hovering in a state of agitation between the detective and the counselor, fingers twitching as he stared at the mango on the shelf, lid firmly in place and his fingers still useless. The taste of mortality lived on in his tongue and he had never been so denied since becoming a shinigami, and wasn't quite sure as to how to approach this situation anymore beyond demands.

"I WANT MANGO," he bellowed, foot tapping the air. 

L grabbed the container, flung the lid to the floor, and proffered it to the monster with a smile. "Do you have a name?" he asked him. 

The shinigami gobbled handfuls, and it was some time before he paused enough to answer. "Ryuk." 

"What's your favorite fruit?" 

"Apples.

"I'll buy you an orchard as big as you want if you guide me through the realm of the dead in my current state." 

Mello's eye's widened. 

"But you must promise my return. As a mortal. In this state. Unharmed. In our current time frame." 

"I'm coming too," said Matsuda. 

Mello tried to find his voice but only managed a feeble cough and a wave. 

"And," said L, "to give you some interest…that I'll carry out my end of the bargain, if you come over this way…" he exited the panic room and led the group to a large window overlooking the vast forest the camp was plunged in. An area to the southeast was more trim and young than the surrounding trees. "That's the camp's apple orchard," L pointed. "You can eat your fill before we leave." 

Ryuuk did a poor job of pretending to consider this bargain, as he was already nodding. "There has to be different kinds of apples." 

"Thirteen varieties in front of you and as many as you like when we return." 

Drool landed on L's bare foot. He smiled.

In three hours he was dead.  


	13. Trepidation

"Well."

There was a delight to the word that made Light's skin crawl.

Misa Amane sat on a throne of bone with a scepter of sinew and lazily twirled it in her hands.

"I'm training to become a shinigami, Light! The Shinigami King told me I could practice on you." She leaned forward and her St. Peter's cross earrings bounced. "First I was sad that I accidentally killed you, but now it's fun!"

Light was as calm as could be expected after hearing the confession of one's own murder. And as Misa spoke, and her eyes glowed with alien light, the boy who had spurned her so thoroughly now felt a parallel between them as he identified in her the hunger for power and quest for subtle machinations that ruled his life.

It wasn't fair that she was sitting in his spot.

"I've decided to torture you," Misa continued, taking the bored tone she'd learned from Light but hadn't perfected in the way he had; the effect was enough to make Light's lip curl. "This is hell, anyway. We-ell." The bored tone was dropped and she tapped her lips with a pout. "More like purgatory! I'm surprised you walked this far without meeting anyone to take advantage of! Oh, dearie dearie me, that's _my_ job now! Sowwy!"

"Just get on with it," Light seethed.

In life, Misa had stewed lethargically in the rage that came from an existence of being thwarted. The lethargy had come from its age, and now that she was challenged with eternity the lethargy fell away like so much shed skin. She was not going to just _get on with it_.

"But then you won't know the rules…not that you follow them," she sighed, examining the grave dirt beneath her nails. "Look behind you."

They were standing on an island. In the same way that dreams shift and stabilize, the grayness surrounding them shifted and stabilized, and perched on a cliff before him was a perfect example of a cottage in the fairytale tradition, covered in sprays of pink roses and surrounded by a white picket fence, cobblestone path strewn thick with moss.

"At what point does the utopia become a dystopia?" he drawled, not impressed.

Misa hopped off her throne and floated to his side.

"Go inside," she ordered.

Of course.

Of course a lingering sense of distrustfulness would begin at the sight of a dropped chocolate wrapper just at the threshold on the cherry oak floors. It rose with a sharp taste of panic as Light meandered from entryway to living room to hallway to kitchen as he caught a whiff of him, of that sharp, clean smell…

"You killed both of us?" Light guessed, too scared to not know and then see Lawliet lounging in something like his hammock. He had to know now, had to be prepared… 

"Noo-oo," sang Misa, triumphant. "This is a _different_ L. This L _hates_ you. Bye!" A crack of the air and she was gone. 

Purgatory was this? Living with an angry genius in a little house on a cliff? Where was the catch? Light cupped his face in his hands and began to sway as he considered trajectories.

"Has she made you sign the contract yet?"

This Lawliet looked older.

That could have been the wariness in his eyes as he leaned against the banister of the narrow servant staircase behind the kitchen. As if L were a bird, Light stayed put, afraid of flight if he moved any closer.

"What contract?" Light whispered. He did not like this.

"We're in a type of purgatory," L droned, staring past Light towards the kitchen. "According to the contract neither of us will be freed until there is deep mutual interest between us. Mutual interest meaning…well…and there's a time limit. If 'deep mutual interest' doesn't occur within twenty-four hours we will both cease to exist. Or you will. I've forgotten."

Oh, the gall. He had just left a life where such a thing existed, palpable, at fingertips, only unspoken, and here he was being forced to create a mirage of the same with some clone that _couldn't_ exist, and for that he would die a second time.

In another life, perhaps Misa would be worthy of him.

"Where's the contract?"

L nodded at the large wooden table underneath the kitchen window.The paper was held down by a vase full of wildflowers so pungent Light sneezed.

"You haven't signed," he remarked.

"Because I would rather consciousness end before I did this with _you_."

Light moved back to this new L. He was definitely older, it wasn't just his demeanor. "Are you from a different timeline?"

L now squinted back. "You haven't found the death note yet."

"Seventeen," Light offered, growing ever more uncomfortable. "Isn't that just an urban legend? Like Bloody Mary in the United States?"

L held his face in his hands. "I can't wait to die." He left Light and walked up the stairs.

"AMANE," Light screamed. 

 

* * *

 

Near was waffling about like itinerant toilet paper. Gravity, it seemed, was not something he had been given in Mu to the extent of others. He had just left a party celebrating the Western Canon hosted by a group of 7th century writers in denial. Unfortunately he spoke very few dead languages, but they had quite a lot of scrolls to read, and he now knew enough vulgar and esoteric imaginings to be the envy of Mello for, perhaps, a few months. Not that he would ever see him again. It was nice to think of anyway, given that he still retained consciousness. Trying to walk was now his main pursuit and he eventually settled into an awkward loping bounce.

When he came across the bloody body of a businessman, still wearing his suit, Near's foot entangled with the man's tie, and the man sat up, blinking in the wan light. Near freed himself and turned over in midair. Embarrassing.

Then he realized he was looking at Light Yagami.

"Where did you come from?" Light gasped, wiping at the blood on his body. He began shouting, ripping at his clothes. "Why are _you_ here? Am I dead? Is this death?"

This was not the Light that had died in L's quarters. He was taller, muscular; there was a hint of scruff on his face and his jaw was more defined. And there was a caged experience in his eyes, part fear and part power, that had yet to be developed in the seventeen year-old Near had known for the past few months.

This was a new fell beast altogether. And he had just died. Near was instantly on edge.

A finger was thrust into his face. "I see you did not reign long after your predecessor!"

 _Oh_.

Light cocked his head. "Or haven't at all. Are we regressing in death? Do we get younger till we no longer exist?"

There was an inner fight then, Near could see, because Light wanted to know why this younger Near had appeared at his feet but making him privy to any more information was to lose power over the current situation, even though it was obvious he had no power at all. Near waited patiently for the outcome. Either way he knew that there was more knowledge to be gained with or without this adult Light and it did not necessarily matter that they had even met. He shook his curls and waited. He had decided to say nothing.

"Have you seen L yet?" Light asked sharply.

Ah, so that was how it was to this Light. Near smiled.

More silent assessment by either party. Light's jacket fell next to his tie and he undid the first few buttons of his dress shirt. The cufflinks came next and Light rolled up his sleeves. He was tanned, sinewy. The adult Light was Adonis come into his own, the embryo of this form somewhere else in death, in this vast nothingness, and who knew how many different timelines converged here…if he would find an aborted Light, a Light grown to old age… Near's head hurt—no, his heart did. He wondered if there was a Mello here, waiting for him.

"How long have you been dead?" asked this strange Light. "Do you know how the system here functions?"

Near smiled again.

"Do you know who I am?"

Near began flapping, and drifted away.

"You can't hide," Light began to scream. "I can destroy you here! You did this and I am going to destroy you!"

His words didn't echo. They fell opaque and soft and Near drifted onward.

 

* * *

 

The L that the newly dead adult Light knew sat in the bedroom of the cottage.

L had been serious when voicing his disgust. Light had defeated him, killed him, surpassed him, and signing the contract was somewhat too close to forgiveness. L found the entire setup in and of itself despicable. Apparently Light had not favored Mu, to say the least, but L was not about to give up the chance of becoming a shinigami simply because the Shinigami King had decided it was amusing to force two archenemies into a romantic relationship. Now the brat would attempt to get him to sign the contract and it would take three months before he could return to an underworld he'd liked. His plans could be in shambles by then and though L wasn't lazy in the least the thought of rebuilding five year's worth of work was a new agony, that even in this purgatory state Light could kill him yet again.

But there was a problem, and that was Light himself. He was fresh and innocent. He'd been covered in blood, yes, but the bewilderment and physical immaturity was causing a rift in the setup, and L didn't know at what point the plan erred. The Yagami of his own timeline must be here somewhere or the plan wouldn't have been rushed into place, but the wrong Light had been collected for the task. All of it smelled crass. He was going to get a migraine. Since he'd been in death, migraines had been near-constant. Probably the sugar withdrawal. His body was merely taking five years to get over it.

There was a soft knock on his door.

L's eyes rolled upward in disgust. "Come in."

Shyly, Light moved into the room. "I think I figured it out."

"What have you come up with?" L was lazing across a plump chair. Next to the chair was an open window and a pair of bluebirds were softly chirping as they built a nest on the branch of a flowering tree. Light felt like gagging. Even this older L's demeanor, his obvious self-mastery that the nineteen year-old he knew didn't yet have was giving this L the upper hand, and Light had to allow for some humility. He sat, back rigid, on the bed.

"My older self that you know is dead. I just died. They've mixed us up."

"Right. The Shinigami King won't accept faked affection and I'd rather die—" L banged on the window and the bluebirds scattered "—then do this with _you_."

"But I'm not—"

"Coercing a minor I had a professional, working relationship with in another life is not negotiable."  _A relationship that led to my death_. 

Light's eyes filled with tears.

He couldn't explain it—this uncanny valley—it was impossible for this person wearing the skin of Lawliet to understand that he was as unfamiliar as any stranger plucked from passerby and with each eyebrow raise and quirk of the lips Light was reminded of the _real_ Lawliet, _his_ Lawliet, while this flat paper doll of a man in front of him made disagreeable noises. And now he was to disappear forever because this man and Amane, not even working in tandem, had ruined his very short life.

"Why are you accepting this?" Light barked out.

This startled L.

"You…you..you're an idiot! You're not even looking for a loophole! And you've been dead for how long and you know—"

"Don't use your fear to insult me."

"I killed you, didn't I? So I killed you and now you're going to let Amane kill you a second time?"

L sat, a finger to his bottom lip, picking at the dead skin on his chapped lips. Now the finger trembled. "Amane?"

"Who told you about this plan and contract? Was it Amane? She's the one who just killed me. This was her idea so she can become a full shinigami. You don't know?" Light stuck his tongue out in abject revulsion. " _You didn't even try to figure it out_?" This calcified how not-L this L was. It was too much. He walked over and started poking L's face with his fingers, as if inspecting a mirage. "You didn't try at all, greatest-detective-in-the-world? Is this a setup?" His hands dropped to his sides and he backed away slowly. "Are you…are you actually B?"

 _You little shit_ , thought L. His curiosity (his curse) was too piqued. "Let's go to the kitchen, Yagami. Let's talk." It was a snarl, but Light, the smallest of possibilities now a warm glow in his throat, followed the strange Lawliet down the stairs.


End file.
